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WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE.
0
EXTENT OF THE IMPRESSION.
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THE WORKS
OP
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE,
THE TEXT FORMED FROM
TO ■WHICH ABE ADDED ALL
THE ORIGINAL NOVELS AND TALES ON WHICH THE PLAYS ARE FOUNDED;
COPIOUS ARCH^OLOGICAL ANNOTATIONS ON EACH PLAY;
AN ESSAY ON THE FORMATION OF THE TEXT;
AND A LIFE OF THE POET:
BY
JAMES 0. HALLIWELL, ESQ., F.R.S.
BONOBAKY MEMBEK OF THE EOYAL IRISH ACADEMY; THE KOYAL SOCTETY OP LITEEATUBE ; THE NEWCASTLE ANTIQUABIAN SOCIETY; THE
ASHMOLEAN SOCIETY, AND THE SOCIETY FOB THE STUDY OF GOTHIC AECHITKCTUKE ; EELLOW OF THE SOCIETY OF ANTIQUARIES ; AND
CORRESPONDING MEMBER OF THE ANTItJUARIAN SOCIETIES OF SCOTLAND, POICTIERS, PICARDIE, AND CAEN (ACADEMIE DES SCIENCES),
AND OF THE COMITE DES ARTS ET MONUMENTS.
VOLUME 11.
THE TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA.
THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR.
LOCAL ILLUSTRATIONS— WINDSOR AND BRENTFORD.
THE ILLUSTRATIONS AND WOOD-ENGRAVINGS
BY
FREDERIGK iwiLIilAM -FAjiliHOLT, ESQ., F.S.A.
AUTHOR qp. ! COSTSUME ?.N, ENGLAND,' ETC.
LONDON :
PRINTED rOR THE EDITOR, BY C. AND J. ADLARD, BARTHOLOMEW CLOSE.
1854.
HIS MAJESTY THE KING OF PRUSSIA.
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fist 0f |l!ites.
1. View of Datcliet Mead and Windsor Park in the seventeenth century,
exhibiting the site of Palstaff's adventure of the Buck-basket, from the
original drawing in the Sutherland Collection . . frontispiece
2. Facsimile of the first page of the Two Gentlemen of Verona, from the
folio edition of 1623 . . . . . .28
3. Facsimile of an early English A. B. C.-Book, dated a. d. 1575, from
the original black-letter broadside in the possession of the Editor, tlie first
portion ... ... 78
4. The second part of the same .... ib.
5. The Music of My Lady Carey's Dump, from the original manuscript
of the time of Henry VIII., preserved in the Old Boyal Library in the
British Museum . . . . . .127
6. Passages from the Two Gentlemen of Verona, and the Merry Wives
of Windsor, as they occur in a manuscript of the seventeenth century, many
of which exhibit examples of the unauthorized alterations of the text which
were common at that period . . . . .177
7. Facsimiles of the title-pages of the early quarto Editions of the Merry
Wives of AVindsor . . . . . .210
8. A Plan of Windsor and the Little Park, as they existed in the year
1607, from the original by John Norden .... 255
9. Facsimile of the black-letter Ballad of ' Live with me, and be my
Love,' from the original printed in the seventeenth century . .375
10. The black-letter Ballad of ' Fortune my Foe,' the song alluded to in
the Merry Wives of Windsor, from a copy preserved in the Bagford
Collection ...... 390
^Ijc ®tao (itntlcmcn of 0troiui
'J
EARLY EDITIONS.
(1) . In the folio edition of 1623 ; in the division of Comedies, pp. 20 to 38,
sigs. B 4;°--©.
(2) . In the foho edition of 1632. The pagination and signatures are the
same as in the above.
(3) . In the foho edition of 1664. The pagination and signatures are the
same as in the above.
(4) . In the foho of 1685; in the division of Comedies, pp. 18 — 34, sigs. B
3v"— C 5.
INTRODUCTION.
The popular literature of England, at the conclusion of the
sixteenth century, included many reliques of medieval romance;
and there can be but little doubt that Shakespeare, in his earlier
days, had become acquainted with most of the more favorite
stories of ancient date, then rendered familiar to the populace
by oral tradition, and by that extensive series of publications
generally known as chap-books, so few of which belonging to
that period now remain. Our acquaintance at the present day
with the baser literature of the Elizabethan era is so exceedingly
circumscribed, we can derive but a very faint impression of the
vastness of the stores whence the poets and dramatists of the
day obtained many of their materials. There is an incident at
the conclusion of the play now under consideration, the sug-
gestion of which, amongst others, may fairly be ascribed to the
efforts of a mind strongly imbued with early romantic lore — the
incident, I mean, of Valentine's unnatural generosity, where, in
the excess of his rapture for the repentance of Proteus, he gives
up to him all his right in Silvia. More extravagant instances of
a similar description occur in the old English metrical romance
of Amis and Amiloun ; and, in fact, Shakespeare has only
adopted a very subdued type of a friendship story. That he
should have availed himself of any narrative of the kind indi-
cates certainly the period of composition to have been early in
the poet's career, but, beyond this, there seems to be clearly no
necessity for adopting any refined explanation of the scene,
which is inconsistent with its obvious import.
All this is necessarily to be accepted on the supposition that
the incident referred to is not to be found in some earlier novel
or play, in itself the origin of the Two Gentlemen of Verona.
It is evidently by no means impossible that this is the case.
Tieck mentions an old German play, printed soon after the
-1
THE TWO GENTLEMEN OE VEEONA.
[iNTHOD.
death of Shakespeare [Englandische Comedlen mid TiUKjedien,
1()20), a tragedy entitled 'Jidio und IlypoUta,' which, according
to liini, is ahnost identical with this drama, except that, in the
CJernian piece, at the wedding, the deceived friend stahs the
false one, who has certainly carried on his intrigue very clumsily
— the hride murders herself, and her lover follows her example.
The clown of the play is called Grohianus Pickclhering, and,
according to Tieck, the piece is only very roughly and briefly
given, nmch of it appearing to be omitted. It is deeply to be
regretted that this German play should at present be inaccessible,
Tieck not having included it in his collection, and the most
careful search for a copy of the original w ork having hitherto
proved unsuccessful.
The following observations by Karl Simrock will form an
a})propriate introduction to any further remarks of our own on the
source of the plot. "The novel of Bandello, which Shakespeare
followed in Twelfth Night, furnished the Spanish writer,
IMontemayor, with the materials for an episode in his Diana,
which again has been used by Shakespeare, in the Two
Gentlemen of Verona ; thus Bandello's story may be considered
as the foundation of the two plays of Shakespeare. Bandello's
tales w^ere extant in 1554. Montemayor's 'Diana,' therefore,
which was printed in 1560 in seven books [and frequently
republished], may have been indebted to the Italian novelist.
That this is the case, and how it has happened, the reader will see
by comparing the tale of Felismena with the story of Bandello.
It seems to have been the first intention of Montemayor to
follow his original more closely than he eventually did ; at least,
the introduction of the story of Felismena shows us that her
twin brother, whose name is not mentioned, was to have
answered the unfortunate passion of Celia for Felismena,
disguised under the name of Valerio ; as Paolo, in Bandello,
indemnifies Catella. It is true that Montemayor lets Celia die
of despair at the coldness of the page, but probably he had here
another novel of Bandello's in his mind, and meant that she
shordd Hc^yeiteLred, as Fenicie is, and then be married to
Felismena's twin brother. Montemayor does not, indeed,
mention the likeness of the twins, but probably he had reasons
for not indicating this too soon ; besides, in twins such a
likeness is tacitly supposed. ^lontemayor's 'Diana' was con-
tinued, first by Alonso Perez, a physician of Salamanca (1564),
and then by Gil Polo (1574), to which latter Cervantes allows
INTEOD.]
THE TWO GENTLEMEN OF VEr.ONA.
even higher praise tlian to Monternayor himself. Neither of
these continiiators, however, has taken up the intention of
^lontemayor. Ceha dies in reahty, and Fehsniena's hrother
does not fnlfil the purpose for which Montemayor appears to
haA^e introduced hini. If the untimely death of jNIontcmayor
has withheld from his readers an important portion of the
invention of Bandello, Shakespeare went still I'urther in this
play ; for though he gives from Montemayor's episode the
history of Felismena (Julia), from the letter of Don Felis
(Proteus) and her quarrel with the chamhermaid, to the infidelity
of Felis (whom Felismena serves disguised as a page, and courts
another woman for her lover and master); yet he suppresses
still more of the relation of Bandello, since Silvia (Celia, Catella),
whose heart is already occupied by Valentine, does not fall in
love with the page. But it is precisely the portion of the story
here suppressed which makes the main incident of the later play
of Twelfth Night ; whilst in this latter the first part of Ban-
dello's tale is wanting, inasnmch as we learn nothing of the
earlier love of the Duke for Viola. In reply to the censure, in
itself unjust, which English critics bestow on Shakespeare for
this omission, it should be remembered that it was necessary to
avoid a repetition of the same incident. In the Two Gentlemen
of Verona, Shakespeare has contrived very artfully to connect
the episode of Montemayor with an action perfectly distinct
from it ; Proteus, while he is faithless to his beloved, also
practising treason against his friend. The relation of the two
friends to one another and to Silvia ; the fickleness of Proteus
(indicated in his very name), who is false to Valentine for the
sake of an unreturned passion, in contrast with the noble fidelity
of the latter, who is willing to sacrifice his tenderly-returned
love to the friend whose falsehood he has detected, form the
main incident of this play, to which the love of Julia to Proteus
serves only as an episodical by -play. The source whence
Shakespeare borrowed his principal incident was probably one
of the numerous modifications of the friendship-story, which, in
its German form, has always for its subject the collision of love
with friendship. Which of these was present to his imagination
we cannot decide, since the source of this part of his play is not
yet discovered. Tieck (German Theatre^ i., 27,) suspects it,
without any very weighty grounds, in an older English play, of
which an imitation, he says, has been preserved in an old
German tragedy, 'Julio und Hypolita.' It is quite possible that
6
THE TWO GENTLEMEN OE VERONA.
[iNTROD.
Sliakespcarc may here have followed no distinet model, and
may only haye drawn upon his <>;eneral knowledge of the poems
and popular hooks helonging to this eyele of ideas, hut still more
upon his own imagination; the heginning of the play, however,
where A alentine insists upon going to the court of the Emperor
(it is true that he is afterwards always called the Dahe of Milan),
and there falls in love Avith the daughter of his lord, reminds
lis very distinctly of Amicus and Amelius, one of the most
celehrated friendship-stories, which perhaps was the foundation
of the tale made use of hy Shakespeare. The part of the false
llarderich, in whose place Thurio stands at first, is here carried
out hy Proteus, in whom, from this time, love triumphs over
friendship ; whilst Valentine ceases not to hear himself as a
pattern for true friends. Tieck, in his second part of the poet's
life [Novellen Kranz for 1831), directed his attention especially
to this play, when he makes the poet experience, with his
friend Lord Southampton, something of the same painful nature
which happens to Valentine with Proteus. It is very possible
that Shakespeare may have represented some of his own trials in
the Two Gentlemen of Verona ; but the composition of this
play falls into an earlier period than the incident with the Earl."
It has been observed by Dunlop that a mistress serving her lover
in the capacity of a page, and employed by him to propitiate an
obdurate fair one, is a common love adventure with the old
novelists ; and he mentions a tale, founded on this incident, in
the Ecatommithi of Cinthio.
The 'Diana' of IMontemayor was one of the books which
had the rare merit of escaping the flames that consumed the
greater portion of the library of Don Quixote. "I am of
opinion we ought not to burn it, but only take out that part of
it which treats of the magician Felicia and the enchanted water,
as also all the longer poems, and let the work escape with its
prose, and the honour of being the flrst in that kind." The
'Diana' desers ed the praise of Cervantes, and it appears to have
been extremely popular in England during the later years of the
sixteenth century. It was translated by Bartholomew Yong
in and before 1583, by Thomas Wilson in 1596, and parts
of it w ere rendered into English by Edward Paston and the
celebrated Sir Philip Sidney ; but Yong's version was the only
one published, and that did not appear till 1598, the year in
which we first hear of the Two Gentlemen of Verona in the
pages of Meres. It was published in a folio volume, entitled,
iNTEOD.] THE TWO GENTLEMEN OE VEEONA.
7
'Diana of George of Montemayor, translated out of Spanish
into English by Bartholomew Yong of the Middle Temple
gentleman ; at London, Printed by Edm. Bollifant, inipensis
G.B., 1598.' Yong, in his preface, observes that the translation
had been completed in manuscript upwards of sixteen years.
The fact of the popularity of the ' Diana ' in England at this
period is of considerable importance, for, although it would
seem that Shakespeare could not have read the printed trans-
lation by Yong before he composed the play, there are
similarities between a story contained in the work of Monte-
mayor, and the drama, too minute to be accidental. According to
one critic, the incident common to the two is only such as
might be found in other romances, and he limits the resemblance
to the assumption of male attire by the lady. But the most
striking similitude is contained in the account of the circum-
stance of bringing the letter, and the waywardness of Julia ; and
I subjoin an extract from the ' Diana,' containing the principal
portion of the autobiography of Felismena, which will exhibit
even several of Shakespeare's own expressions, and prove that
such an opinion is quite untenable :
You shall therefore knowe (faire nymphes) tliat great Vandalia is my native
countrie, a province not far hence, where I was borne, in a citie called Soldina ;
my mother called Delia, my father Andronius, for linage and possessions the
chiefest of aU that province. It fell out that as my mother was married many
yeeres and had no children, by reason whereof she lived so sad and malecontent
that she enjoyed not one merry day, with teares and sighes she daily importuned
the heavens, and, with a thousand vowes and devout offerings, besought God to
grant her the summe of her desire : whose omnipotencie it pleased, beholding
from his imperiall throne her continuall orisons, to make her barren bodie (the
greater part of her age being now spent and gone) to become fruitful. What
infinite joy she conceived thereof, let her judge, that after a long desire of any
thing, fortune at last doth put it into her handes. Of which content my father
Andronius being no lesse partaker, shewed such tokens of inward joy as are
impossible to be expressed. My mother Delia was so much given to reading of
ancient histories, that if, by reason of sicknes or any important businesse, she had
not bene hindred, she would never (by her will) have passed the time away in
any other delight ; who (as I said) being now with childe, and finding herselfe on
a night iU at ease, intreated my father to reade something unto her, that, her
minde being occupied in contemplation thereof, she might the better passe her
greefe away. My fatlier, who studied for nothing els but to please her in all he
might, began to reade unto her the historic of Paris, when the three Ladies
referred their proude contention for the golden apple to his conclusion and
judgement. But as my mother held it for an infallible opinion that Paris had
partially given that sentence, perswaded thereunto by a blinde passion of beautie,
so she said, that without all doubt he did not with due reason and wisedome con-
sider the goddesse of battels ; for, as martiall and heroicall feates (saide she)
8
THE TWO GENTLEMEN OE VEEONA.
[iNTllOD.
excelled all other qualities, so with e([iiitie and justice the ap])lc should have bene
•iiveii to lier. ]\Iy lather answered, tliat since the a})ple was to be ii,iven to the
fairest, and that A'enus was fairer then any of the rest, Paris had riglitly g-iven his
judgement, if that harme had not ensued thereof, which afterwardes did. To this
niy mother replied, that, though it was written in the apple. Thai il should he
(/ire// iu Ihe fairest, it was not to be understood of corporall beautie, but of the
intellectuall beautie of the mind. And tlicrfore since fortitude was a thing that
made one most beautiful, and the exercise of arms an exterior act of this vertue,
she alliruied, that to the goddesse of battels this apple should be given, if Paris
had judged like a prudent and unappassionate judge. So that (faire nymplies)
they si)ent a great part of the night in this controversie, both of them alledging
tlie most reasons they could to confirme their owne purpose. They persisting in
this point, sleepe began to overcome her, whom the reasons and arguments of her
husband coidde not once moove ; so that being very deepe in her disputations, she
fell into as deepe a sleepe, to whom, my father being now gone to his cliamber,
a})peered the goddesse Venus, with as frowning a countenance as faire, and saide,
I marvell, Delia, who hath mooved thee to be so contrarie to her, that was never
o])posite to thee ? If thou hadst but called to minde the time when thou wert so
overcome in love for Andronius, thou wouldest not have paide me the debt
thou owest me with so ill coine. But thou shalt not escape free from my due
anger ; for thou shalt bring forth a sonne and a daughter, whose birth shall cost
thee no lesse then thy life, and them their contentment, for uttering so much in
disgrace of my honour and beautie : both which shall be as infortunate in their
love as any were ever in all their lives, or to the age wherein, with remedylesse
sighes, they shall breath forth the summe of their ceaselesse sorrowes. And having
saide thus, she vanished away : when, likewise, it seemed to my mother that the
Goddesse Pallas came to her in a vision, and with a merry countenance saide thus
unto her : With what sufficient rewardes may I be able to requite the due regarde
(most liappie and discreete Delia) which thou hast alleaged in my favour against
thy husbands obstinate opinion, except it be by making thee understand that thou
shalt bring foortli a sonne and a daughter, the most fortunate in armes that have
bene to their times. Having thus said, she vanished out of her sight, and my
mother, thorow exceeding feare, awaked immediately. Who, within a moneth
after, at one birth was delivered of me, and of a brother of mine, and died in
childebed, leaving my father the most sorrowfull man in the world for her sudden
death ; for greefe whereof, within a little while after, he also died. And bicause
you may knowe (faire nymphes) in what great extremities love hath put me, you
must understand, that (being a woman of that qualitie and disposition as you have
heard) I have bene forced by my cruell destinie to leave my naturall habit and
libertie, and the due respect of mine honour, to follow him, who thinkes (perhaps)
that I doe but leese it by loving him so extremely. Behold, how bootelesse and
unseemely it is for a woman to be so dextrous in armes, as if it were her proper
nature and kinde, wherewith (faire nymphes) I had never bene indued, but that,
by meanes thereof, I should come to doe you this little service against these
villain es ; which I account no lesse then if fortune had begun to satisfie in part
some of those infinite wrongs that she hath continually done me. The nymphes
were so amazed at her words, that they coulde neither aske nor answere any thing
to that the faire Shepherdesse tolde them, who, prosecuting her historie, saide :
My brother and I were brought up in a nunnerie, where an aunt of ours was
abbesse, untill we had accomplished twelve yeeres of age, at what time we were
taken from thence againe, and my brother was caried to the mightie and invin-
cible king of Portugal! his court (whose noble fame and princely liberalitie was
INTROD.J
THE TWO GENTLEMEN OE VEEONA.
9
bruted over all the world) where, being growen to yeeres able to manage amies,
he atchieved as valiant and almost incredible enterprises by them, as he suffered
unfortunate disgraces and foiles by love. And witli aU this he was so highly
favoured of that magnificent king, that he would never suffer him to depart from
his com-t. Unfortunate I, reserved by my sinister destinies to greater mishaps,
was caried to a grandmother of mine, which place I would I had never scene,
since it was an occasion of such a sorrowfull life as never any woman suffered the
like. And bicause there is not any thing (faire nymphes) which I am not forced
to tell you, as well for the great vertue and desertes which your excellent beauties
doe testifie, as also for that my minde doth give me, tliat you shall be no small
part and meanes of my comfort, knowe, that as I was in my grandmothers house,
and almost seventeene yeeres olde, a certaine yoong gentleman fell in love with
me, who dwelt no further from our house then the length of a garden terrasse, so
that he might see me every sommers night when I walked in the garden. When
as therefore ingratefull Eelix had beheld in that place the unfortunate Eelismena
(for this is the name of the wofuU woman that tels you her mishaps) he was
extremely enamoured of me, or else did cunningly dissemble it, I not knowing
then whether of these two I might beleeve, but am now assured, that whosoever
beleeves lest, or nothing at all, in these affaires, shall be most at ease. Many
dales Don Eelix spent in endevouring to make me know the paines which
he suffered for me, and many more did I spende in making the matter strange,
and that he did not suffer them for my sake : and I know not why love
delaied the time so long by forcing me to love him, but onely that (when he came
indeed) he might enter into my hart at once, and with greater force and violence.
When he had, therefore, by sundrie signes, as by tylt and tourneyes, and by
prauncing up and downe upon his proude jennet before my windowes, made it
manifest that he was in love with me (for at the first I did not so well perceive it)
he determined in the end to write a letter unto me ; and having practised divers
times before with a maide of mine, and at length, with many gifts and faire
promises, gotten her good wiU and furtherance, he gave her the letter to deliver
to me. But to see the meanes that Rosina made unto me, (for so was she called)
the dutifull services and unwoonted circumstances, before she did deliver it, the
othes that she sware unto me, and the subtle words and serious protestations she
used, it was a pleasant thing, and woorthie the noting. To whom (neverthelesse)
with an angrie countenance I turned againe, saying. If I had not regard of mine
owne estate, and what heerafter might be said, I would make this sliamelesse face
of thine be knowne ever after for a marke of an impudent and bolde minion : but
bicause it is the first time, let this suffice that I have saide, and give thee warning
to take heede of the second.
Me thinkes I see now the craftie wench, how she helde her peace, dissembling
very cunningly the sorrow that she conceived by my angrie answer; for she
fained a counterfaite smiling, saying, Jesus, Mistresse ! I gave it you, bicause you
might laugh at it, and not to moove your pacience with it in this sort ; for if I
had any thought that it woulde have provoked you to anger, I praie God he may
shew his wrath as great towards me as ever he did to the daughter of any mother.
And with this she added many wordes more (as she could do well enough) to
pacific tlie fained anger and ill opinion that I conceived of her, and taking her
letter with her, she departed from me. This having passed thus, I began to
imagine what might ensue thereof, and love (me thought) did put a certaine desire
into my minde to see the letter, though modestie and shame forbad me to aske it
of my maide, especially for the wordes that had passed betweene us, as you have
heard. And so I continued all that day untill night, in varietie of many
II. 2
10
THE TAVO GENTLEMEN OE VEllONA.
[iNTROD.
tlioug-lits ; Lilt when Eosina came to liclpc mc to "boddc, God knoAves how desirous
I was to have her entreat nie againe to take the letter, hut slie woukle never
spcakc unto me about it, nor (as it seemed) did so much as once thinkc tliereof.
Yet to trie, if by giving- lier some occasion I might prevaile, I saide unto her :
And is it so, Rosina, that Don Eelix, witliout any regard to mine honour, dares
^\rite unto me? These are things, mistrcsse, saide she demurely to me againe,
that are commonly incident to love, wherfore I beseech you pardon me, for if I
had thought to have angred you with it, I woukle have first pulled out the bals of
mine eics. How cold my hart was at that blow, God knowcs, yet did I dissemble
the matter, and suffer myseKe to remaine that night onely with my desire, and
with occasion of little sleepe. And so it was, indeede, for that (me thought) was
the longest and most painfull night that ever I passed. But when, with a slower
pace then I desired the wished day was come, the discreet and subtle Eosina
came into my chamber to helpe me to make me readie, in dooing whereof, of
purpose she let the letter closely fall, which, when I perceived, What is that that
fell downe? (said I), let me see it. It is nothing, mistresse, saide she. Come,
come, let me see it (saide I) : what ! moove me not, or else tell me what it
is. Good Lord, mistresse (saide she), why will you see it ! it is the letter
I would have given you yesterday. Nay, that it is not (saide I), wherefore
shew it me, that I may see if you lie or no. I had no sooner said so, but
she put it into my liandes, saying, God never give me good if it be anie
other thing ; and although I knewe it well indeede, yet I saide. What, this
is not the same, for I know that well enough, but it is one of thy lovers
letters : I will read it, to see in what neede he standetli of thy favour. And
opening it, I founde it conteined this that folio weth.
" I ever imagined (deere mistresse) that your discretion and wisedome
woulde have taken away the feare I had to write unto you, the same knowing
well enough (without any letter at all) how much I love you, but the very
same hath so cunningly dissembled, that wherein I hoped the onely remedie
of my griefes had been, therein consisted my greatest harme. If according
to your wisedome you censure my boldnes, I shall not then (I know) enjoy one
bower of life ; but if you do consider of it according to loves accustomed effects,
then wiU I not exchange my hope for it. Be not offended, I beseech you (good
ladie) with my letter, and blame me not for writing unto you, untiU you see by
experience whether I can leave of to write : and take me besides into the possession
of that which is yours, since all is mine doth Avholly consist in your hands, the
which, with all reverence and dutifull aflPection, a thousand times I kisse."
T\nien I had now scene my Don Eelix his letter, whether it was for reading it
at such a time, when by the same he shewed that he loved me more then
himselfe, or whether he had disposition and regiment over part of this wearied
soule, to imprint that love in it whereof he wrote unto me, I began to love him
too well, (and, alas, for my harme !) since he was the cause of so much sorrow as
I have passed for his sake. Whereupon, asking Bosina forgivenes of what was
past (as a thing needfuU for that which was to come) and committing the secrecie
of my love to her fidelitie, I read the letter once againe, pausing a little at every
^vorde (and a very little indeede it was) bicause I concluded so soone with my
selfe to do that I did, although in verie truth it lay not otherwise in my power to
do. Wherefore, calling for paper and inke, I answered his letter thus.
" Esteeme not so slightly of mine honour, Don Eelix, as with fained words to
thinke to enveagle it, or with thy vaine pretenses to ofPend it any waies. I
know wel enough what manner of man thou art, and how great thy desert and
j^resumption is ; from whence thy boldnes doth arise (I gesse), and not from
ixTROD.] THE TWO GENTLEMEN OE VEEONA. 11
the force (wliich thing thou wouldst fame perswade me) of thy fervent love. And
if it be so (as my suspicion suggesteth) thy labor is as vaine as thy imagination
presumptuous, by thinking to make me do any thing contrarie to that which I
owe unto mine honour. Consider (I beseech thee) how seldome things com-
menced under suttletie and dissimulation have good successe ; and that it is not
the part of a gentleman to meane them one way and speak them another. Thou
praiest me (amongst other things) to admit thee into possession of that that is
mine : but I am of so ill an humour in matters of this qualitie, that I trust not
things experienced, how much lesse then thy bare wordes ; yet, neverthelesse, I
make no small account of that which thou hast manifested to me in thy letter ;
for it is ynough that I am incredulous, though not unthankfull."
This letter did I send, contrarie to that I should have done, bi cause it was the
occasion of all my harmes and greefes ; for after this, he began to waxe more
bolde by unfolding his thoughts, and seeking out the meanes to have a parly with
me. In the ende, faire nymphes, a few dales being spent in his demaunds and
my answers, false love did worke in me after his wonted fashions, every hower
seasing more strongly upon my unfortunate soule. The tourneies were now
renewed, the musicke by night did never cease ; amorous letters and verses were
re-continued on both sides ; and thus passed I away almost a whole yeere, at the
end whereof, I felt my selfe so far in his love, that I had no power to retire, nor
stay my selfe from disclosing my thoughts unto him, the thing which he desired
more then his owne life. But my adverse fortune afterwardes would, that of these
our mutuall loves (when as now they were most assured) his father had some
intelligence, and whosoever revealed them first, perswaded him so cunningly, that
his father (fearing least he would have married me out of hand) sent him to the
great Princesse Augusta Csesarinas court, telling him, it was not meete that a
yoong gentleman, and of so noble a house as he was, should spende his youth idly
at home, where nothing could be learned but examples of vice, whereof the very
same idlenes (he said) was the onely mistresse. He went away so pensive, that
his great greefe would not suffer him to acquaint me with his departure ; which
when I knew, how sorrowfidl I remained, she may imagine that hath bene at any
time tormented with like passion. To tell you now the life that I led in his
absence, my sadnes, sighes, and teares, which every day I powred out of these
wearied eies, my toong is far unable : if then my paines were such that I cannot
now expresse them, how could I then suffer them? But being in the mids of my
mishaps, and in the depth of those woes which the absence of Don Eelix caused
me to feele, and it seeming to me that my greefe was without remedie, if he were
once scene or knowen of the ladies in that court (more beautifull and gracious
then my selfe), by occasion whereof, as also by absence (a capitall enemie to love)
I might easily be forgotten, I determined to adventure that, which I thinke never
any woman imagined ; which was to apparell my selfe in the habit of a man, and
to hye me to the court to see him, in whose sight al my hope and content re-
mained. Which determination I no sooner thouglit of then I put in practise, love
blinding my eies and minde with an inconsiderate regarde of mine owne estate and
condition. To the execution of which attempt I wanted no industrie ; for, being-
furnished with the helpe of one of my approoved friends, and treasouresse of my
secrets, who bought me such apparell as I willed her, and a good horse for my
journey, I went not onely out of my countrie, but out of my deere reputation, which
(I thinke) I shall never recover againe ; and so trotted directly to the court,
passing by the way many accidents, which (if time would give me leave to tell
them) woulde not make you laugh a little to heare them. Twenty daies I was in
going thither, at the ende of which, being come to the desired place, I tooke up
12
TUE TWO GENTLEMEN OE VERONA.
[iNTllOD.
mine iniie in a streetc lost {sic) frequented with concursc of people : and the
great desire I had to sec the destroier of my joy did not sull'er me to tliinkc of any
otlier thing-, but how or where I might see him. To inquire of him of mine host
I durst not, lest my comniing might (perhaps) have bene discovered ; and to seeke
him foorth I thought it not best, lest some inopinate mishap might have fallen
out, whereby I might have bene knowen. Wherefore I passed all that day in
these perplexities, while night came on, each hower whereof (me thought) Avas a
whole yeere unto me. But midnight being a little past, mine host called at my
chamber doore, and tolde me if 1 was desirous to heare some brave musicke, I
should arise quickly, and open a Avindow towards the street. The which I did by
and by, and making no noise at all, I heard how Don Eelix his page, called
Eabius (whom I knew by his voice) saide to others that came witli him, Now it is
time, my masters, bicanse the lady is in the gallerie over her garden, taking the
fresh aire of the coole night. He had no sooner saide so, but they began to winde
three cornets and a sackbot, Avith such skill and SAveetenesse, that it seemed celes-
tiall musicke ; and then began a voice to sing, the SAveetest (in my opinion) that
ever I heard. And though I Avas in suspence, by hearing Eabius speake, Avhereby
a thousand doubtes and imaginations (repugnant to my rest) occurred in my minde,
yet I neglected not to heare Avhat Avas sung, bicause their operations were not of
such force that they were able to hinder the desire, nor distemper the delight that
I conceived by hearing it. That therefore which was sung were these verses : —
SAveete mistresse, harken unto me,
(If it greeves thee to see me die)
And hearing, though it greeveth thee,
To heare me yet do not denie.
O grant me then this short content,
Eor forc'd I am to thee to tlie.
My sighes do not make thee relent,
Nor teares thy hart do mollifie.
Nothing of mine doth give thee payne.
Nor thou tliink'st of no remedie :
Mistresse, how long shall I sustaine
Such ill as still thou dost applie ?
In death there is no helpe, be sure,
Eut in thy Avill, where it doth lie ;
Eor all those illes which death doth cure,
Alas ! they are but light to trie :
My troubles do not trouble thee,
Nor hope to touch thy soule so nie :
O ! from a AviU that is so free.
What should I hope when I do crie ?
How can I mollifie that brave
And stonie hart of pittie drie ?
Yet mistresse, turne those eies (that have
No peeres) shining like stars in skie ;
But turne them not in angrie sort,
If thou wilt not kill me thereby :
Though yet, in anger or in sport,
Thou kiUest onely Avith thine eie.
iNTROD.] THE TWO GENTLEMEN OE VERONA. 13
After tliey had first, witli a concent of musicke, sung this song, two plaied,
the one upon a lute, the other upon a silver sounding harpc, being accompanied
with the sweete voice of my Don Eelix. The great joy that I felt in hearing him
cannot be imagined, for (me thought) I heard him nowe, as in that happie and
passed time of our loves. But after the deceit of this imagination was discovered,
seeing with mine eies, and hearing with mine eares, that this musicke was
bestowed upon another, and not on me, God knowes what a bitter death it was
unto my soule : and with a greevous sigh, that caried almost my life away with it,
I asked mine host if he knew what the ladie was for whose sake the musick was
made ? He answered me, that he could not imagine on whom it was bestowed,
bicause in that streete dwelled manie noble and faire ladies. And when I saw he
could not satisfie my request, I bent mine eares againe to heare my Don Eelix,
who now, to the tune of a delicate harpe, whereon he sweetely plaied, began
to sing this sonnet following :
A Sonnet. — My painefull yeeres impartiall Love was spending
In vaine and booteles hopes my life appaying,
And cruell Eortune to the world bewraying
Strange samples of my teares that have no ending.
Time, everie thing to truth at last commending.
Leaves of my steps such markes, that now betraying,
And all deceitfull trusts shall be decaying,
And none have cause to plaine of his offending.
Shee, whom I lov'd to my obliged power,
That in her sweetest love to me discovers
Which never yet I knew (those heavenly pleasures).
And I do sale, exclaiming every hower,
Do not you see what makes you wise, O lovers ?
Love, Eortune, Time, and my faire mystresse treasures.
The sonnet being ended, they paused awhile, playing on fower lutes togither,
and on a paire of virginals, with such heavenly melodic, that the whole worlde
(I thinke) could not affoord sweeter musick to the eare nor delight to any minde,
not subject to the panges of such predominant greefe and sorrow as mine was.
But then fower voices, passing well tuned and set togither, began to sing this song
following :
A Song. — That sweetest harme I doe not blame,
Eirst caused by thy fairest eies.
But greeve, bicause too late I came.
To know my fault, and to be wise.
I never knew a worser kinde of life.
To live in feare, from boldnesse still to cease :
Nor, woorse then this, to live in such a strife.
Whether of both to speake, or holde my peace ?
And so the harme I doe not blame,
Caused by thee or tliy faire eies ;
But that to see how late I came,
To knowe my fault, and to be wise.
TKE TWO GENTLEMEN OE VEEONA.
[iNTROD.
I ever more did feare tliat I should knowc
Some secret tliiiiiis, and doubtl'idl in their kinde,
Eicausc the sm'est things doe ever goc
Most contrarie unto my wish and minde.
And yet by knowing- of tlie same
There is no hm't ; hut it denies
My remedie, since kite I came,
To knowe my fault, and to be wise.
"When this song was ended, they began to sound divers sorts of instruments,
and voices most excellently agreeing togither, and with such sweetnes that they
could not chuse but delight any very much who were not so farre from it as I.
About daA^ ning of the day the musicke ended, and I did what I could to espie out
my Don Eelix, but the darknes of the night was mine enimie therein. And
seeing now that they ^Yere gone, I went to bed againe, where I bewailed my great
mishap, knowing that he whom most of al I loved, had so unwoorthily forgotten
me, whereof his musicke was too manifest a witnes. And when it was time,
I arose, and without any other consideration, went straight to the Princesse her
pallace, where (I thought) I might see that which I so greatly desired, determining
to call my selfe Valerius, if any (perhaps) did aske my name. Comming therefore
to a faire broad court before the pallace gate, I viewed the windowes and galleries,
where I sawe such store of blazing beauties, and gallant ladies, that I am not able
now to recount, nor then to do any more but woonder at their graces, their gor-
geous attyre, their jewels, their brave fashions of apparell, and ornaments where-
with they were so richly set out. Up and downe this place, before the windowes,
roade many lords and brave gentlemen in rich and sumptuous habits, and mounted
upon proud jennets, every one casting his eie to that part where his thoughts were
secretly placed. God knowes how greatly I desired to see Don Eelix there, and
that his injurious love had beene in that famous pallace; bicause I might then
have beene assured that he shoulde never have got any other guerdon of his sutes
and services, but onely to see and to be seene, and sometimes to speake to his
mistresse, whom he must serve before a thousand eies, bicause the privilege of that
place doth not give him any further leave. But it was my ill fortune that he had
setled his love in that place where I might not be assured of this poore helpe.
Thus, as I was standing neere to the pallace gate, I espied Eabius, Don Eelix his
page, comming in great haste to the pallace, where, speaking a word or two with
a porter that kept the second entrie, he returned the same waie he came. I
gessed his errant was, to knowe whether it were fit time for Don Eelix to come to
dispatch certaine busines that his father had in the court, and that he could not
choose but come thither out of hand. And being in this supposed joy which his
sight did promise me, I sawe him comming along with a great traine of followers
attending on his person, all of them being bravely apparelled in a liverie of
watchet silke, garded with yellow velvet, and stitched on either side with threedes
of twisted silver, wearing likewise blew, yellow, and white feathers in their hats.
But my lorde Don Eelix had on a paire of ash colour [velvet] hose, embrodered and
drawen foorth with watchet tissue ; his dublet was of white satten, embrodered
with knots of golde, and likewise an embrodered jerkin of the same coloured
velvet ; and his short cape cloke was of blacke velvet, edged with gold lace, and
hung full of buttons of pearle and gold, and lined with razed watchet satten : by
his side he ware, at a paire of embrodered hangers, a rapier and dagger, with
engraven hilts and pommell of beaten golde. On his head, a hat beset full of
golden stars, in the mids of everie which a rich orient pearle was enchased, and
ixTEOD.] THE TWO GENTLEMEN OE VEEONA.
15
liis feather was likewise blew, yellow, and white. Mounted he came upon a faire
dapple graie jennet, with a rich furniture of blew, embrodered with golde and seede
pearle. AYhen I sawe him in this rich equipage, I was so amazed at his sight,
that how extremely my sences were ravished with sudden joye I am not able (faire
nymphes) to tell you. Truth it is, that I could not but shed some teares for joy
and greefe, which his sight did make me feele, but, fearing to be noted by the
standers by, for that time I dried them up. But as Don Felix (being now come
to the pallace gate) was dismounted, and gone up a paire of staires into the
chamber of presence, I went to his men, where they were attending his returne;
and seeing Eabius, whom I had scene before amongst them, I tooke him aside,
and saide unto him. My friend, I pray you tell me what Lord this is, which did
but even now alight from his jennet, for (me thinkes) he is very like one whom I
have seene before in an other farre countrey. Eabius then answered me thus ;
Art thou such a novice in the court that thou knowest not Don Eelix ? I tell
thee there is not any lord, knight, or gentleman better knowne in it then he. No
doubt of that (saide I), but I will tell thee what a novice I am, and how small a
time I have beene in the court, for yesterday was the first that ever I came to it.
Naie then, I cannot blame thee (saide Eabius) if thou knowest him not. Knowe,
then, that this gentleman is called Don Eelix, borne in Yandalia, and hath his
chiefest house in the ancient cittie of Soldina, and is remaining in this court about
certaine affaires of his fathers and his owne. Eut I pray you tell me (said I) why
he gives his liveries of these colours ? If the cause were not so manifest, I woulde
conceale it (saide Eabius), but since there is not any that knowes it not,
and canst not come to any in this court who cannot tell thee the reason why,
I tliinke by telling thee it I do no more then in courtesie I am bound to do. Thou
must therefore understand, that he loves and serves a ladie heere in this citie
named Celia, and therefore weares and gives for his liverie an azm^e blew, which is
the colour of the skie, and white and yellow, which are the colours of his lady and
mistresse. When I heard these words, imagine (faire nymphes) in what a plight I
was ; but dissembling my mishap and griefe, I answered him : This ladie certes is
greatly beholding to him, bicause he thinkes not enough, by wearing her
colours, to shew how willing he is to serve her, unlesse also he beare her name in
his liverie ; whereupon I gesse she cannot be but very faire and amiable. She is
no lesse, indeede, saide Eabius, although the other whom he loved and served in
our owne countrey in beautie farre excelled this, and loved and favoured him more
then ever this did ; but this mischievous absence doth violate and dissolve those
things which men thinke to be most strong and firme. At these wordes (faire
nymphes) was I faine to come to some composition with my teares, which, if
I had not stopped from issuing foorth, Eabius could not have chosen but suspected,
by the alteration of my countenance, that all was not well with me. And then
the page did aske me, what countrey-man I was, my name, and of what calling
and condition I was : whom I answered, that my countrey where I was borne was
Yandalia, my name Valerius, and till that time served no master. Then by this
reckoning (saide he) we are both countrey-men, and may be both fellowes in one
house if thou wilt ; for Don Eelix my master commanded me long since to seeke
him out a page. Therefore if thou wilt serve him, say so. As for meate, drinke,
and apparell, and a couple of shillings to play away, thou shalt never want;
besides pretie wenches, which are not daintie in our streete, as faire and amorous
as queenes, of which there is not anie that will not die for the love of so proper
a youth as thou art. And to tell thee in secret (because, perhaps, we may be
fellowes), I know where an old cannons maide is, a gallant fine girle, whom if
thou canst but finde in thy hart to love and serve as I do, thou shalt never want
16
THE TWO GENTLE]\[EN OF VERONA.
[iNTROD.
at lier hands fiiio liaiul-kn-cliers, pccccs of bacon, and now and then wine of
S. ]\lart}n. \\ hen 1 heard this, I coukl not choose hut hmg-h, to see how
natnrally the unhai)})ie page phiyed his part by depainting foorth their properties
in tlieir lively colonrs. And because I thought nothing more commodious for my
rest, and for the enjoying of my desire, then to follow Eabius his counsel!,
I answered him thus : in truth, 1 determined to serve none ; but now, since
fortune hath offered me so good a service, and at such a time, when I am
constrained to take this course of life, T shall not do amisse if I frame myselfe to
the service of some lord or gentleman in this court, but especially of your master,
because he seemes to be a woortliy gentleman, and such an one that makes more
reckoning of his servants then an other. Ha, thou knowest him not as well as I
(said Eabius) ; for I promise thee, by the faith of a gentleman (for I am one
indcede, for my father comes of the Cachopines of Laredo), that my master Don
Felix is the best natured gentleman that ever thou knewest in thy life, and
one who useth his pages better then any other. And were it not for those
troublesome loves, which makes us runne up and downe more, and sleepe lesse,
then we woulde, there were not such a master in the whole worlde againe. In
the end (faire npnphes) Eabius spake to his master, Hon Felix, as soone as
he was come foorth, in my behalfe, who commanded me the same night to come
to him at his lodging. Thither I went, and he entertained me for his page,
making the most of me in the worlde ; where, being but a fewe daies with him, I
sawe the messages, letters, and gifts that were brought and caried on both
sides, greevous wounds (alas ! and corsives to my dying hart), which made
my soule to flie sometimes out of my body, and every hower in hazard to
leese my forced patience before every one. But after one moneth was past,
Hon Felix began to like so well of me, that he disclosed his whole love
unto me, from the beginning unto the present estate and forwardnes that it
was then in, committing the charge thereof to my secrecie and helpe ; telling
me that he was favoured of her at the beginning, and that afterwards she
waxed wearie of her loving and accustomed entertainment, the cause whereof was
a secret report (whosoever it was that buzzed it into her eares) of the love
that he did beare to a lady in his owne countrey, and that his present love
unto her was but to entertaine the time, while his busines in the court were
dispatched. And there is no doubt (saide Hon Felix unto me) but that, indeede,
I did once commence that love that she laies to my charge ; but God knowes if
now there be any thing in the world that I love and esteeme more deere
and precious then her. When I heard him say so, you may imagine (faire
nymphes) what a mortall dagger pierced my wounded heart. But with dis-
sembling the matter the best I coulde, I answered him thus : It were better, sir
(me tliinkes), that the gentlewoman should complaine with cause, and that
it were so indeed ; for if the other ladie, whom you served before, did not deserve
to be forgotten of you, you do her (under correction, my lord) the greatest wrong
in the world. The love (said Hon Felix againe) which I beare to my Celia will
not let me understand it so ; but I have done her (me tliinkes) the greater injurie,
having placed my love first in an other, and not in her. Of these wrongs (saide
I to my selfe) I know who beares the woorst away! And disloyall he, pulling a
letter out of his bosome, which he had received the same hower from his mistresse,
reade it unto me, thinking that he did me a great favour thereby, the contents
whereof were these :
Celias letter to Don Felix. — " Never any thing that I suspected, touching thy
love, hath beene so farre from the truth, that hath not given me occasion to
beleeve more often mine owne imagination then thy innocencie ; wherein, if
INTROD.]
THE TWO GENTLEMEN OE YEEONA.
17
I do thee any wrong, referre it but to the censure of thine owne follie. Eor
well thou mightest have denied, or not declared thy passed love, without giving
me occasion to condemne thee by thine owne confession. Thou saiest I was the
cause that made thee forget thy former love. Comfort thy selfe, for there shall
not want another to make thee forget thy second. And assure thy selfe of this
(lord Don Eelix) that there is not any thing more unbeseeming a gentleman, then
to finde an occasion in a gentlewoman to leese himselfe for her love. I will sale no
more, but that in an ill, where there is no remedie, the best is not to seeke out any."
After he had made an end of reading the letter, he said unto me, AVhat
thinkest thou, Valerius, of these words? With pardon, be it spoken, my Lord, that
your deedes are shewed by them. Go to, said Don Eelix, and speake no more of that.
Sir, saide I, they must like me wel, if they like you, because none can judge better
of their words that love well then they themselves. But that which I thinke of
the letter is, that this gentlewoman would have beene the first, and that fortune
had entreated her in such sort, that all others might have envied her estate. But
what wouldest thou counsell me ? saide Don Eelix. If thy griefe doth suffer any
counsell, saide I, that thy thoughts be [not] divided into this second passion, since
there is so much due to the first. Don Eelix answered me againe, sighing, and
knocking me gently on the shoulder, saying. How wise art thou, Valerius, and
what good counsell dost thou give me if I could follow it. Let us now go in to
dinner, for when I have dined, I will have thee carie me a letter to my lady Celia,
and then thou shalt see if any other love is not woorthy to be forgotten in lieu of
thinking onely of her. These were wordes that greeved Eelismena to the hart,
but bicause she had him before her eies, whom she loved more then her-selfe, the
content, that she had by onely seeing him, was a sufficient remedie of the paine,
that the greatest of these stings did make her feele. After Don Eelix had dined,
he called me unto him, and giving me a speciall charge what I should do (because
he had imparted his griefe unto me, and put his hope and remedie in my hands),
he willed me to carie a letter to Celia, which he had alreadie written, and, reading
it first unto me, it said thus :
Bon Felix Ms letter to Celia. — " The thought, that seekes an occasion to
forget the thing which it doth love and desire, suffers it selfe so easily to be
knoAvne, that (without troubling the minde much) it may be quickly discerned.
And thinke not (faire ladie) that I seeke a remedie to excuse you of that,
wherewith it pleased you to use me, since I never came to be so much in credit
with you, that in lesser things I woulde do it. I have confessed unto you that
indeede I once loved well, because that true love, without dissimulation, doth not
suffer any thing to be hid, and you (deere ladie) make that an occasion to forget
me, which should be rather a motive to love me better. I cannot perswade me,
that you make so small an account of your selfe, to thinke that I can forget you
for any thing that is, or hath ever been, but rather imagine that you write cleane
contrarie to that, which you have tried by my zealous love and faith towards you.
Touching all those things, that, in prejudice of my good wiU towards you, it
pleaseth you to imagine, my innocent thoughts assure me to the contrarie, which
shall sufiice to be iU recompenced besides being so ill thought of as they are."
After Don Eelix had read this letter unto me, he asked me if the answer was
correspondent to those words that his ladie Celia had sent him in hers, and if
there was any thing therein that might be amended ; whereunto I answered thus :
I thinke. Sir, it is needlesse to amende this letter, or to make the gentlewoman
amendes, to whom it is sent, but her, whom you do injurie so much with it.
Which under your lordships pardon I speake, bicause I am so much aflFected to
the first love in all my life, that there is not any thing that can make me alter
II. . 3
18 THE TWO GENTLEMEN OE YEllONA. [introd.
my iiiiiulc. Thou hast the g-rcatest reason in the world (said Don Eelix) if I
coulde ])ers\vade niy selfe to leave of that, which I have begun, liwt what wilt
thou have nie do, since absence hath frozen the former love, and the continuall
presence of a peerelesse beautie rekindled another more hot and fervent in me ?
Tluis may she thinke her selfe (saide I ag-aine) unjustly deceived, whom first you
loved, because that love which is subject to the i)ower of absence cannot be
termed love, and none can perswade me that it hath beene love. These words
did I dissemble the best I could, because I felt so sensible griefe, to see myselfe
forgotten of him, who had so great reason to love me, and whom I did love so much,
that I did more, then any would have thought, to make my selfe still unknowen.
But taking tlie letter and mine errant with me, I went to Celias house, imagining
by the way the wofull estate whereunto my haplesse love had brought me ; since
I was forced to make warre against mine owne selfe, and to be the intercessour of
a thing so contrarie to mine owne content. But comming to Celias house, and
finding a page standing at the dore, I asked him if I might speake with his
ladie : who being informed of me from whence I came, tolde Celia how I would
speake with her, commending therewithall my beautie and person unto her, and
telling her besides, that Don Eelix had but lately entertained me into his service ;
which made Celia saie unto him, What, doth Don Eelix so soone disclose his
secret loves to a page, but newly entertained? he hath (belike) some great
occasion that mooves him to do it. Bid him com in, and let us know what he
would have. In I came, and to the place where the enimie of my life was, and,
with great reverence kissing her hands, I delivered Don Eelix his letter unto her.
Celia tooke it, and casting her eies upon me, I might perceive how my sight had
made a sudden alteration in her countenance, for she was so farre besides herselfe,
that for a good while she was not able to speake a worde, but, remembring
her selfe at last, she saide unto me, What good fortune hath beene so favourable
to Don Eelix to bring thee to this court, to make thee his page? Even that,
faire ladie, saide I, which is better then ever I imagined, bicause it hath beene an
occasion to make me behold such singular beautie and perfections as now I see
cleerely before mine eies. And if tlie paines, the teares, the sighes, and the
continuall disquiets that my lord Don Eelix hath suffred have greeved me
heeretofore, now that I have scene the source from whence they flow, and the
cause of all his ill, the pittie that I had on him is now wholly converted into a
certaine kinde of envie. But if it be true (faire lady) tliat my comming is
welcome unto you, I beseech you by that, wdiich you owe to the great love which
he beares you, that your answer may import no lesse unto him. There is not
anie thing (saide Celia) that I would not do for thee, though I w^ere determined
not to love him at all, who for my sake hath forsaken another ; for it is no
small point of wisedome for me to learne by other womens harmes to be more
wise, and w^arie in mine owne. Beleeve not, good lady (saide I), that there is any
thing in the worlde that can make Don Eelix forget you. And if he hath cast
off another for your sake, woonder not thereat, when your beautie and wisedome is
so great, and the others so small that there is no reason to thinke that he will
(though he hath woorthelie forsaken her for your sake) or ever can forget you for
any woman else in the worlde. Doest thou then know Eelismena (said Celia),
the lady whom thy master did once love and serve in his owne countrey ? I
know her (saide I), although not so well as it was needfuU for me to have pre-
vented so many mishaps, (and this I spake softly to my selfe); for my fathers
house was neere to hers ; but seeing your great beautie adorned with such
perfections and wisedome, Don Eelix can not be blamed, if he hath forgotten his
first love only to embrace and honour yours. To this did Celia answer, merily
lOTROD.] THE TWO GENTLEMEN OE VEEONA.
19
and smiling, Thou hast learned quickly of thy master to sooth. Not so, faire
ladie, saide I, but to serve you woulde I faine learne : for flatterie cannot be,
where (in the judgement of all) there are so manifest signes and proofes of this
due commendation. Celia began in good earnest to aske me what manner of
woman Eelismena was, whom I answered, that, touching her beautie. Some
thought her to be very faire; but I was never of that opinion, bicause she hath
many daies since wanted the chiefest thing that is requisite for it. What is that ?
said Celia. Content of minde, saide I, bicause perfect beautie can never be,
where the same is not adjoyned to it. Thou hast the greatest reason in the
world, said she, but I have scene some ladies whose lively hewe sadnes hath not
one whit abated, and others whose beautie anger hath encreased, which is a
strange thing me thinkes. Haplesse is that beauty, said I, that hath sorrow and
anger the preservers and mistresses of it, but I cannot skill of these impertinent
things : And yet that woman, that must needes be molested with continuaU paine
and trouble, with greefe and care of minde and with other passions to make her
looke well, cannot be reckoned among the number of faire women, and for mine
owne part I do not account her so. Wherein thou hast great reason, said she, as
in all tilings else that thou hast saide, thou hast shewed thy selfe wise and
discreete. Which I have deerely bought, said I againe : But I beseech you
(gracious lady) to answer this letter, because my lord Don Eelix may also have
some contentment, by receiving this first well emploied service at my hands. I
am content, saide Celia, but first thou must teU me if Eelismena in matters of
discretion be wise, and well advised? There was never any woman (saide I
againe) more wise then she, bicause she hath beene long since beaten to it by her
great mishaps : but she did never advise her selfe well, for if she had (as she was
accounted wise) she had never come to have bene so contrarie to her selfe. Thou
speakest so wisely in all thy answeres, saide Celia, that there is not any that
woulde not take great delight to heare them : — which are not viands (said I) for
such a daintie taste, nor reasons for so ingenious and fine a conceit (faire lady), as
you have, but boldly affirming, that by the same I meane no harme at aU. There
is not any thing, saide Celia, whereunto thy wit cannot attaine, but because thou
shalt not spende thy time so ill in praising me, as thy master doth in praying me,
I wiU reade thy letter, and teU thee what thou shalt say unto him from me.
Whereupon unfolding it, she began to read it to her selfe, to whose countenance
and gestures in reading of the same, which are oftentimes outwarde signes of the
inwarde disposition and meaning of the hart, I gave a watchfull eie. And when
she had read it, she said unto me, Tell thy master, that he that can so well by
wordes expresse what he meanes, cannot choose but meane as well as he saith :
and comming neerer unto me, she saide softly in mine eare, And this for the love
of thee, Valerius, and not so much for Don Eelix thy master his sake, for I see
how much thou lovest and tenderest his estate. And from thence, alas (saide I
to my selfe), did all my woes arise. Whereupon kissing her hands for the great
curtesie and favour she shewed me, I hied me to Don Eelix with this answer,
which was no small joy to him to heare it, and another death to me to report it,
saying manie times to my selfe (when I did either bring him home some joyfuU
tydings or carrie letters or tokens to her), O thrise unfortunate Eelismena, that
with thine owne weapons art constrained to wounde thy ever-dying hart, and to
heape up favours for him, who made so small account of thine. And so did
I passe away my life with so many torments of minde, that if by the sight of
my Don Eelix they had not beene tempered, it coulde not have otherwise beene
but that I must needes have lost it. More tlien two monethes togither did Celia
hide from me the fervent love she bare me, although not in such sort, but that by
20
THE TWO GENTLEMEN OE VERONA.
[iNTROD.
cert nine apjiarant sij^ncs I came to the knowlcdg-c thereof, whicli was no small
light iuii- and case of tliat grieCc, which incessantly haunted my wearied spirites ;
for as I thoug'ht it a strong- occasion, and the onely meane to make her utterly
forget Don Eelix, so likewise I imagined, that, perhaps, it might befall to him as
it hath done to many, that the force of ingratitude, and contempt of his love,
might have utterly abolished such tlioughtes out of his hart. But, alas, it
happened not so to my Don Eelix ; for the more he perceived that his ladie forgot
him, the more was his minde troubled with greater cares and greefe, whicli made
him leade the most sorrowfidl life that niiglit be, whereof the least part did not
fall to my lot, Eor remedie of whose sighes and pitious lamentations, poore
Eelismena (even by maine force) did get favours from Celia, scoring them
up (whensoever she sent them by me) in the catalogue of my infinite mishaps.
Eor if by chaunce he sent her anie thing by any of his other servants, it was so
slenderly accepted, that he thought it best to send none unto her but my
selfe, preceiving what inconvenience did ensue tliereof. But God knowes
how many teares my messages cost me, and so many they were, that in
Celias presence I ceased not to powre them foorth, earnestly beseeching her
witli praiers and petitions not to entreat him so ill, who loved her so much,
bicause I woulde binde Don Eelix to me by the greatest bonde, as never man
in like was bounde to any woman. My teares greeved Celia to the hart, as
well for that I shed them in her presence, as also for that she sawe if I
meant to love her, I woulde not (for requitall of hers to me) have soUicited
her with such diligence, nor pleaded with such pittie, to get favours for another.
And thus I lived in the greatest confusion that might be, amids a thousand
anxieties of minde, for I imagined with my selfe, that if I made not a shew
that I loved her, as she did me, I did put it in hazard lest Celia, for despite
of my simplicitie or contempt, woulde have loved Don Eelix more then before,
and by loving him that mine coulde not have any good successe ; and if I fained
ray selfe, on the other side, to be in love with her, it might have beene an
occasion to have made her reject my lord Don Eelix ; so that with the thought of
his love neglected, and with the force of her contempt, he might have lost his
content, and after that, his life, the least of which two mischiefes to prevent
I woulde have given a thousand lives, if I had them. Manie dales passed away
in this sort, wherein I served him as a thirde betweene both, to the great
cost of my contentment, at the end whereof the successe of his love went on
woorse and woorse, bicause the love that Celia did beare me was so great,
that the extreme force of her passion made her leese some part of that compassion
she should have had of her selfe. And on a day after that I had caried and
recaried many messages and tokens betweene them, somtimes faining some
my selfe from her unto him, because I could not see him (whom I loved so
deerly) so sad and pensive, with many supplications and earnest praiers I
besought lady Celia with pittie to regard the painfull life that Don Eelix
passed for her sake, and to consider that by not favouring him, she was
repugnant to that which she owed to her selfe : which thing I entreated, bicause
I sawe him in such a case, that there was no other thing to be expected of
him but death, by reason of the continuall and great paine which his greevous
thoughts made him feele. But she, with swelling teares in her eies, and with
many sighes, answered me thus : Unfortunate and accursed Celia, that nowe
in the end dost know how thou livest deceived with a false opinion of thy great
simplicitie (ungratefull Valerius) and of thy small discretion. I did not beleeve
till now that thou didst crave favours of me for thy master, but onely for thy
selfe, and to enjoy my sight all that time, that thou diddest spende in suing to me
INTROD.]
THE TWO GENTLEMEN OF VEEONA.
21
for them. But now I see thou dost aske them in earnest, and that thou art so
content to see me use him well, that thou canst not (without doubt) love me at all,
0 how ill dost thou acquite the love I beare thee, and that which, for thy sake, I
do nowe forsake ? O that time might revenge me of thy proude and fooHsh minde,
since love hath not beene the meanes to do it. Eor I cannot thinke that Eortune
will be so contrarie unto me, but that she will punish thee for contemning that
great good which she meant to bestow on thee. And tell thy lord Don Eelix, that
if he will see me alive, that he see me not at all : and thou, vile traitour,
cruell enemie to my rest, com no more (I charge thee) before these wearied eies,
since their teares were never of force to make thee knowe how much thou art
bound unto them. And with this she suddenly flang out of my sight with so many
teares, that mine were not of force to stale her. For in the greatest haste in the
worlde she got her into her chamber, where locking the dore after her, it availed
me not to call and crie unto her, requesting her with amorous and sweete words
to open me the dore, and to take such satisfaction on me as it pleased her : nor to
tell her many other things, whereby I declared unto her the small reason she had
to be so angrie with me, and to shut me out. But with a strange kinde of furie
she saide unto me. Come no more, ungratefull and proud Valerius, in my sight,
and speake no more unto me, for thou art not able to make satisfaction for
such great disdaine, and I will have no other remedie for the harme which thou
hast done me, but death it selfe, the which with mine owne hands I will take in
satisfaction of that, which thou deservest : which words when I heard, I staled no
longer, but with a heavie cheere came to my Don Eelix his lodging, and, with
more sadnes then I was able to dissemble, tolde him that I could not speake with
Celia, because she was visited of certaine gentlewomen her kinsewomen. But the
next day in the morning it was bruted over all the citie, that a certaine trance had
taken her that night, wherein she gave up the ghost, which stroke all the court
with no smal woonder. But that, which Don Eelix felt by her sudden death, and
how neere it greeved his very soule, as I am not able to tell, so cannot humane
intendement conceive it, for the complaints he made, the teares, the burning
sighes, and hart-breake sobbes, were without all measure and number. But I sale
nothing of my selfe, when on the one side the unluckie death of Celia touched my
soule very neere, the teares of Don Eelix on the other did cut my hart in two
with greefe : and yet this was nothing to that intollerable paine which afterwardes
1 felt. Eor Don Eelix heard no sooner of her death, but the same night he was
missing in his house, that none of his servants nor any bodie else could tell
any newes of him.
Whereupon you may perceive (faire nymphes) what cruell torments I did then
feele : then did I wish a thousand times for death to prevent all those woes and
myseries, which afterwards befell unto me : for Eortune (it seemed) was but
wearie of those which she had but till then given me. But as all the care
and diligence which I emploied in seeking out my Don EelLx was but in vaine, so
I resolved with my selfe to take this habite upon me as you see, wherein it
is more then two yeeres since I have wandred up and downe, seeking him
in manie countryes : but my Eortune hath denied me to finde him out, although
I am not a little now bounde unto her by conducting me hither at this time,
wherein I did you this small peece of service. Which (faire nymphes) beleeve me,
I account (next after his life in whom I have put all my hope) the greatest
content that might have fallen unto me.
Yong's translation of Montemayor, although not printed
before 1598, having been composed many years previously,
22
THE TWO GENTLEMEN OE VEEONA. [inthod.
there is not tlic least improbability in the supposition that a
nianiiseript copy, cither of this or of some other translation, had
fallen in Shakespeare's way. Wilson's translation, which differs
considerably from that by Yon<^, is still preserved in manuscript,
and although it consists only of the first book, is worthy
of notice as an evidence of the popularity of the work in this
country. It is entitled, " Diana de IVlontcmayor done out of
Spanish by Thomas Wilson esquire in the yeare 1596, and
dedicated to the Erie of Southampton, who was then uppon the
Spanish voiage with my Lord of Essex ; wherein, under the
names and vailes of sheppards and theire lovers, are covertly
discovried manic noble actions and affections of the Spanish
nation, as is of the English of that admirable and never enough
praised booke of Sir Philip Sidneyes Arcadia;" but notwith-
standing the testimony of the title-page, the translation is really
inscribed to the right honorable Sir Fulke Grevyll Knight,
Privie Counsellor to his Majesty, and Chancellor of the Ex-
chequer, my most honorable and truly worthy to be honored
frend." According to Wilson, the Diana was one of Sidney's
favorite works. "When the rest of these my chyldish exercises
can be found," he observes, "your honor only shall have the
use of them, for that I know you will well esteeme of them,
because that your most noble and never enough honored frend
Sir Phillipp Siddney did very much affect and imitate the
excellent author thereof, whoe might well tearme his booke
Diana as the Suter of Apollo and the twinn borne with him, as
his Arcadia, which by your noble vertue the world so hapily
enjoyes, might well have had the name of Phoebus, for never
was our age lightned with two starres of such high and eminent
witt, as are the bookes of these two excelling authors, which
doe resemble one another as the sonne and the moone doth, but
with this contrariety, that as the moone takes her light from the
sonne, soe heere this sonne, taking some light from this moone,
grewe much more resplendent then that from whence it had it."
The manuscript is a neatly written quarto, and was preserved
until lately in the archives of a Warwickshire family.
It is worthy of remark that a play called 'Felix and
Philiomena' was performed before Queen Elizabeth in 1584,
conjectured by one critic to have been a drama on the story in
INIontemayor, one of the names having been mis-written : —
"The history of Felix and Philiomena shewed and enacted
before her highnes by her Majesties servauntes on the sondaie
INTEOD.]
THE TWO GENTLEMEN OE VEEONA.
23
next after newe yeares daie, at niglit, at Grenewiclie, whereon
was ymploied one battlement and a house of canvas." No
conclusion, however, can be safely derived from this obscure
notice, but it is by no means impossible that the Two Gentle-
men of Verona, as we now possess it, has received additions
from its author's hands to what was perhaps originally a very
meager production. This conjecture would well agree with
what is known to have been the dramatic usage of the time ;
and it seems difficult to account on any other supposition for the
use Shakespeare has made of the tale of Felismena. The
absolute origin of the entire plot has possibly to be discovered
in some Italian novel. The error in the first folio of Padua for
Milan, in the second act, and the other oversights of a similar
description which occur in this play, have perhaps to be referred
to some of the scenes in the original tale.
The commentators have brought much curious learning to
illustrate the question of the date at which this play was
written ; but their arguments are for the most part founded on
vague generalities, such as notices of foreign adventure and
classical allusions, not by any means sufficiently minute to
enable us to conclude any particular circumstances were in-
tended by the author. Meres, in his *Wits Treasury,' 1598,
says " Shakespeare among the English is the most excellent in
both kinds for the stage ; for comedy, witness his Gentlemen of
Verona, his Errors, &c." This is the earliest notice of the play
that has come down to us ; but most critics believe it to have
been written several years before the publication of the 'Wits
Treasury,' and Mr. Hudson (Lectures on Shakespeare, i. 220)
appears to consider it the poet's earliest dramatic Avork.
Although probably not quite the "first heir" of Shake-
speare's dramatic invention, the Two Gentlemen of Verona
exhibits a deficiency of effective situation, and to some extent a
crudity of construction, which would most likely have been
avoided by a practised writer for the stage. But these defects
are unnoticed by the reader in the richness of its poetical
beauties and overflowing humour, — its romance and pathos.
The tale is based on love and friendship. Valentine is the ideal
personification of both, of pure love to Silvia, and romantic
attachment to the friend of his youth. Proteus, on the
contrary, selfish and sensual, suffers himself to be guided by his
passions, and concludes his inconstancy to his love with
perfidious treachery to his friend. Valentine, noble and brave,
24
THE TWO GENTLEMEN OF VEEONA.
[iNTROD.
but timid before tbe mistress of his affections, adoring Silvia's
glove, and too diffident even to interpret her stratagem of the
letter : Proteus, daring all, and losing his integrity, in the excess
of a tunudtuous passion. If Shakespeare has painted these
elements in an outhne something too bold for the extreme
refinement of the present day, the error must be ascribed to his
era, not to himself; and if it be also objected to this play, that
the female characters are germs only of more powerful creations
in Twelfth Night or Cymbeline, the reader must bear in mind
they are perhaps more suitable to the extreme simplicity of the
story, and that the chief object of the dramatist is directed to
the development of the characters of Valentine and Proteus,
who are the essential dramatic agents of the comedy.
PERSONS REPRESENTED.
The Two Gentlemen of Verona.
Duke of Milan, father to Silvia.
Valentine,
Proteus,
Antonio, father to Proteus.
Thueio, a foolish rival to Valentine.
Eglamoue,, agent for Silvia in her escape.
Speed, a clownish servant to Valentine.
Launce, a cloimiish servant to Proteus.
Panthino, servant to Antonio.
Host, ichere Julia lodges in Milan.
Out-laws.
Julia, a Lady of Verona, heloved hy Proteus.
Silvia, the Duke's daughter, heloved hy Valentine.
Lucetta, waiting-iooman to Julia.
Servants, Musicians.
SCENE, sometimes in Verona ; sometimes in Milan ; and on the frontiers
of Mantua.
IL
4
%d i\t Jfirsi
SCENE I. — An open place in Verona.
Enter Valentine and Proteus.
Val. Cease to persuade, my loving Proteus ;^
Home-keeping youth have ever homely wits ;^
Were 't not affection chains thy tender days
To the sweet glances of thy honour'd love,
I rather would entreat thy company,
To see the wonders of the world abroad,
Than, living dully^ sluggardiz'd at home,
Wear out thy youth with shapeless idleness.*
But, since thou lov'st, love still, and thrive therein.
Even as I would, when I to love begin.
Pro. Wilt thou be gone ? Sweet Valentine, adieu
Think on thy Proteus, when thou, haply, seest
Some rare note-worthy^ object in thy travel :
Wish me partaker in thy happiness.
When thou dost meet good hap : and in thy danger,-
If ever danger do environ thee, —
Commend thy grievance to my holy prayers.
For I will be thy beadsman,*' Valentine.
F^al. And on a love-book pray for my success.
Pro. Upon some book I love, I '11 pray for thee.
Val. That 's on some shallow story of deep love,
How young Leander cross'd the Hellespont.^
Pro. That 's a deep story of a deeper love ;
For he was more than over shoes in love.^
28
THE TWO GENTLEMEN OE VERONA, [act i. sc. i.
T al. 'T is true ; for you arc over boots in love,"
And yet you never swam the Hellespont.
Pro. Over the boots? nay, give me not the boots. ^"
J ol. No, I will not, for it boots thee not, —
Pro. What ?
T al. To be in love, where seorn is bought with groans ;
Coy looks with heart-sore sighs ; one fading moment's mirth
With twenty watchful, weary, tedious nights :
If haply won, perhaps a hapless gain ;
If lost, why then a grievous labour won ;
However, but a folly bought with wit,"
Or else a wit by folly vanquished.
Pro. So, by your circumstance,^^ you call me fool.
Val. So, by your circumstance, I fear you '11 prove.
Pro. 'T is Love you cavil at ; I am not Love.
Val. Love is your master, for he masters you :
And he that is so yoked by a fool,
!Metliinks should not be chronicled for wise.
Pro. Yet writers say, as in the sweetest bud
The eating canker dwells, so eating love
Inhabits in the finest wits of all.
Val. And writers say, as the most forward bud
Is eaten by the canker ere it blow,^^
Even so by love the young and tender wit
Is turn'd to folly; blasting in the bud,
Losing his verdure even in the prime,
And all the fair effects of future hopes.
But wherefore waste I time to counsel thee.
That art a votary to fond desire ?
Once more, adieu I my father at the road"
Expects my coming, there to see me shipp'd.
Pro. And thither will I bring thee,^' Valentine.
Val. Sweet Proteus, no; now let us take our leave.
To Milan let me hear from thee by letters,
Of thy success in love, and what news else
Betideth here in absence of thy friend ;
And I likewise will visit thee with mine.
Pro. All happiness bechance to thee in Milan !
Val. As much to you at home ! and so, farewell.
\JExit Valentine.
Pro. He after honour hunts, I after love :
He leaves his friends to dignify them more ;
Fa^scmde &om. t/ie /irst Ec/itiott of ShaAespea^re^ fol : Lorvdon. 16Z3 .
20
THE
Two Gentlemen of Verona.
Hus primus y Scena prma.
Valentine : Protheuj, and Speed.
yntentiite.
5E»fc to pcrfwadc, my loujng Pr0tketa ;
t-Homc-kceping youthjhauc ciier homely wits,
> W"«r'f not affc(^ion chimes thy tender daycs
Xo the fweetglaunces of thy honom'd Louc,
I rather would entreat thy company,
To fee the wonders of the world abroad,
Then (liuing dully fluggardiz'd at home)
Wcarc out thy youth with fhapclcflc tdlcneiTc.
But fincc thou lou'ftj louc ftill, and thriuc therein,
Eucn as 1 would, when I to loue begin.
Pro. Wilt thou be gonc'Swcct VAleHttKe ad ew,
Thinkc on thy Trothetu, when tiiou(hap'ly) fecil
Some rare note-worthy obiedl in thy trauajle.
Wifh me partaker in thy happineffe.
When thou do'ft meet good hap; and in thy danger,
(If euer danger doe enuiron thee)
Commend thy grieuance to my holy prayers,
Fori will be thy beadef-man, VaUntitie.
Vol. And on a louc-booke pray for my fuccePfc ?
Pre. Vpon fomebookc I loue, I'lc pray for thee.
Yal. That's on fomc rtiallow Stotie of dccpe loue.
How yong Leander croft the HeRe/pent.
Pro. That's a deepe Storic, of a deeper louc.
For he was more then ouer-fhooet in loue.
XJal. 'Tis trues for you areouer-bootes in loue,
And yet you neuer fwom the HelUfpont.
pro. Ouer the Bootes? nay giucmcnottheBootj.
Val. No, I will not; for ic boots thee not.
Pro. What i (grones ;
To be m loue; where fcornc is bought with
Coy lookf, with hart- fo re fighcs : one fading moments
With twenty watchfulI,weary,tedioui nights; (mirth,
If hap'ly won,perhaps a haplcffe gainc ;
If loft, why then a gricuous labour won ,•
How euer ; but a folly bought with wit,
Or elfe a witjbyfolly vanquifK^d.
Pro. So, by your circumflance,you call me foole.
VmI. So,by your circumftancc,! feare you'llproue.
9yo. 'Tis Lootf you canill at, I am not Loue,
Loue is your maCVcr, for he maftersyou ;
And he that is fo yoked by a foole,
Mcthinkesfbould not bechromclcd for wife.
Prv. Yet Writers fay ; as in the fwccteft Bud,
The eating Canker dwds ; fo eating Loue
Inhabits in the fined witi of all.
Vdl, And Writers fay; as the moft for ward Bud
Is eaten by the Canker ere it blow,
Eucn fo by Loue, the yong,and tender wit
Is turn'd to folly, blafting in the Bud,
Looiinghis verdure, eucn intheprime,
And all the fairc effe£is offuture hopes.
But wherefore wafte I time to counfailc thee
That art a votary to fond defire
Once more adieu : my Father at the Road
ExpeiSls my coniming, thereto fee mcfhip'd.
Pro. And thither will I bring xhcc Falentine.
Vnl, Sweet no ; Now let vs take our Icaue;
To LMiHeime let me hcarc from thee by Letters
Of thy fuccelfe in louc ; and what newcs elfc
Betidcth herein abfcnccof thy Friend :
And I likffwifc will vifite thee with mine.
Pro. All happineffe bechance to thee in MiBAine.
Vtil. As much to you at home.- and fo farewell. Exit.
Pro He after Honour hunts, I after Loue
He leaucs his fricnds,to dignifie rhemmore;
I loue rny fclfe, my friends, and all for louc :
Thou Ifdia thou haft mctamorphisM me :
MademencgleA my Studies, loofe my time^
Warre with good counfailc; fet the world at nought ;
Made Wit with mufing,wcake; iiartfick with thought.
Sp, Sxr'Prothew.'hucyoii : fawyoumyMflfter ?
Pre.^nt now he parted hence to embarque ioxAiilUin,
Sp. Twenty to one then, he is fhip'd already,
And I haue plaid the Sheepe in loofing him.
Trc Indeede a Sheepe doth very often ftray.
And if the Shephcard be awhile away.
Sp. You conclude that my Maftenis a Shephcard then,
and ISheepe-f
fro. I doe.
Sp. Why then my homes arc his homes, whether I
v/akeor flccpc.
fro. A filly anfwere, and fitting well a Sheepe.
Sp. This ptoues me ftill a Sheepe.
?ro. True : and thy Maftcr 3 Shephcard.
Sp. Nay, that I can deny by a circumftancc.
Pro. It fhall gochard but ile prouc it by another.
Sp. The Shephcard fcckes the Sheepe, and not the
Sheepe thcShepheard ; but Ifceke my Maftcr, and my
Maftcr fcekes not me : therefore I am no Shccpc.
Pro. The Sheepe for fodder follov/ the Shephcard,
thcShepheard for tbodefollowcs not theShcepc : thou
for wages followeft thy Maftcr, thy Maftcr for wages
followes not thee : therefore thou art a Sheepe.
Sf. Such another proofc will make mc cry baa.
Pro, But do'ft thou hcarc: gau'ft thou my Letter
to Julia f
Sp.\
ACT I. SC. I.] THE TWO GENTLEMEN OE VEEONA.
29
I leave myself, my friends, and all for love.^^
Thou, Julia, thou hast metamorphos'd me, —
Made me neglect my studies, lose my time.
War with good counsel, set the world at nought ;
Made wit with musing weak, heart sick with thought.
Enter Speed.
Speed. Sir Proteus, save you ! Saw you my master ?
Pro. But now he parted hence, to embark for Milan.
Speed. Twenty to one then he is sliipp'd already.
And I have play'd the sheep^^ in losing him.
Pro. Indeed a sheep doth very often stray,
An if the shepherd be awhile away.
Speed. You conclude that my master is a shepherd, then,
and I a sheep.
Pro. I do.
Speed. Why, then my horns are his horns, whether I wake or
sleep.
Pro. A silly answer, and fitting well a sheep.
Speed. This proves me still a sheep.
Pro. True ; and thy master a shepherd.
Speed. Nay, that I can deny by a circumstance.
Pro. It shall go hard but I '11 prove it by another.
Speed. The shepherd seeks the sheep, and not the sheep the
shepherd ; but I seek my master, and my master seeks not me :
therefore, I am no sheep.
Pro. The sheep for fodder follow the shepherd, the shepherd
for food follows not the sheep ; thou for wages followest thy
master, thy master for wages follows not thee : therefore, thou
art a sheep.
Speed. Such another proof will make me cry *baa.'
Pro. But, dost thou hear? gav'st thou my letter to Julia?
Speed. Ay, Sir; I, a lost mutton, gave your letter to her, a
lac'd mutton \ ^ and she, a lac'd mutton, gave me, a lost mutton,
nothing for my labour !
Pro. Here 's too small a pasture for such store of muttons.
Speed, If the ground be overcharg'd, you were best stick her.
Pro. Nay, in that you are a-stray;"^ 't were best pound you.
Speed. Nay, sir, less than a pound shall serve me for carrying
your letter.
Pro. You mistake ; I mean the pound, — a pinfold.
30
THE TWO GENTLEMEN OE YEUONA. [act i. sc. i.
Speed. From a pound to a fold it over and over,
is threefold too little for earrying a letter to your lover.
Pro. But what said she ?
Speed. She did" — [he nods.^
Pro. Did she nod?
Speed. I.
Pro. Nod, I; Avhy, that's noddy.
Speed. You mistook, sir; I say, she did nod: and you ask me
if she did nod ; and I say, I.
Pro. And that set together is — noddy.
Speed. Now you have taken the pains to set it together, take
it for your pains.
Pro. No, no, you shall have it for hearing the letter.
Speed. Well, I pereeive I must be fain to bear with you.
Pro. Why, sir, how do you bear with me ?
Speed. Marry, sir, the letter very orderly; having nothing
but the word ' noddy' for my pains.
Pro. Beshrew me, but you have a quick wit.
Speed. And yet it cannot overtake your slow purse.
Pro. Come, come, open the matter in brief : what said she ?
Speed. Open your purse, that the money, and the matter,
may be both at once delivered.
Pro. AYell, sir, here is for your pains [giving him money):
Avhat said she ?
Speed. Truly, sir, I think you '11 hardly win her.
Pro. Why, couldst thou perceive so much from her?
Speed. Sir, I could perceive nothing at all from her ; no, not
so much as a ducat^^ for delivering your letter : And being so
hard to me that brought your mind, I fear she '11 prove as hard
to you in telling your mind."* Give her no token but stones, for
she 's as hard as steel.
Pro. What I said she nothing ?
Speed. No, not so much as — 'Take this for thy pains.' To
testify your bounty, I thank you, you have testern'd " me ; in
requital whereof, hencefortli carry your letters yourself : and so,
sir, I 11 commend you to my master. \_Exit.
Pro. Go, go, be gone, to save your ship from wreck,
Which cannot perish, having thee aboard,
Being destin'd to a drier death on shore
I must go send some better messenger;
I fear my Julia would not deign my lines.
Receiving them from such a worthless post."'^ [Exit.
ACT I. SC. n.] THE TWO GENTLEMEN OF VEEONA.
SCENE II. — The same. Garden o/" Julia's House.
Enter Julia and Lucetta.
Jul. But say, Lucetta, now we are alone,
WoLildst thou, then, counsel me to fall in love?
Luc. Ay, madam ; so you stumble not unheedfully.
Jul. Of all the fair resort of gentlemen,
That every day with parle"^ encounter me.
In thy opinion which is worthiest love ?
Luc. Please you repeat their names, I '11 show my mind
According to my shallow simple skill.
Jul. What think' st thou of the fair sir Eglamour
Luc. As of a knight well-spoken, neat and fine ;
But, were I you, he never should be mine.
Jul. What think'st thou of the rich Mercatio ?
Luc. Well of his wealth ; but of himself, so, so.
Jid. What think'st thou of the gentle Proteus ?
Luc. Lord, Lord ! to see what folly reigns in us !
Jul. How now ! what means this passion at his name ?
Luc. Pardon, dear madam ; 't is a passing shame,
That I, unworthy body as I am.
Should censure^° thus on lovely gentlemen.
Jul. Why not on Proteus, as of aU the rest ?
Luc. Then thus : of many good I think him best.
Jul. Your reason?
Luc. I have no other but a woman's reason;
I think him so, because I think him so.
Jul. And wouldst tliou have me cast my love on him?
Luc. Ay, if you thought your love not cast away.
Jul. Why, he, of all the rest, hath never mov'd me.^^
Luc. Yet he, of all the rest, I think, best loves ye.
Jul. His little speaking shows his love but small.
Luc. Fire that 's closest kept burns most of all.
Jul. They do not love, that do not show their love.
Luc. O, they love least, that let men know their love.
Jul. I would 1 knew his mind.
Luc. Peruse this paper, madam.
Jid. ' To Julia ! ' — Say, from whom ?
Luc. That the contents will show.
Jul. Say, say, who gave it thee.
Luc. Sir Valentine's page ; and sent, I think, from Protci
33
THE TWO GENTLEMEN OE VERONA, [aci i. sc. ii.
He would have given it you, but I, being in the way,
Did in your name reeeive it ; pardon tlie fault, I pray.
Jul. Now, by niy modesty, a goodly broker
Dare you presmne to harbour wanton lines ?
To whisper and eons})ire against my youth ?
Now, trust me, 't is an ofiiee of great worth,
And you an offieer fit for the place.
There, take the paper ! see it be return'd,
Or else return no more into my sight !
Luc. To plead for love deserves more fee than hate.
Jul. Will ye be gone ?
Luc. [Aside. That you may ruminate. [Exit.
Jul. And yet I would I had o'erlook'd the letter.
It were a shame to eall her back again.
And pray her to a fault for which I chid her.
AYhat fool is she, that knows I am a maid,
And would not force the letter to my view !
Since maids, in modesty, say 'No' to tliat^^
^Yhich they would have the profferer construe 'Ay.'
Fie, fie ! how wayward is this foolish love.
That, like a testy babe, will scratch the nurse.
And presently, all humbled, kiss the rod !
How churlishly I chid Lucetta hence.
When willingly I would have had her here !
How angerly^^ I taught my brow to frown.
When inward joy enforc'd my heart to smile !
My penance is, to call Lucetta back.
And ask remission for my folly past.
What, ho ! Lucetta !
Re-enter Lucetta.
L^ic. What would your ladyship?
Jul. Is 't near dinner-time?
Luc. I would it were.
That you might kill your stomach^" on your meat,
And not upon your maid.
Jul. What is 't that you took up so gingerly ?^'^
Luc. Nothing.
J III. Why didst thou stoop then ?
Luc. To take a paper up that I let fall.
Jul. And is that paper nothing?
Luc. Nothing concerning me.
Jul. Tlien let it lie for those that it concerns.
ACT I. SC. II.] THE TWO GENTLEMEN OF VEEONA.
33
Luc. Madam, it will not lie where it concerns,
Unless it have a false interpreter.
Jul. Some love of yours hath writ to you in rhyme.
Luc. That I might sing it, Madam, to a tune:
Give me a note : your ladyship can set —
Jul. As little by such toys^^ as may be possible:
Best sing it to the tune of 'Light o' love.'^^
Luc. It is too heavy for so light a tune.
Jul. Heavy? belike it hath some burden then.
Luc. Ay; and melodious were it, would you sing it.
Jul. And why not you ?
Luc. I cannot reach so high.
Jul. Let's see your song: — How now, minion? [Slaps her.
Luc. Keep tune there still, so you will sing it out:
And yet, methinks, I do not like this tune.
Jul. You do not?
Luc. No, madam ; 't is too sharp.
Jul. You, minion, are too saucy.
Luc. Nay, now you are too flat,
And mar the concord with too harsh a descant :^^
There wantetli but a mean to fill your song.^°
Jul. The mean is drown'd with your unruly base.
Luc. Indeed, I bid the base for Proteus.*^
Jul. This babble shall not henceforth trouble me.
Here is a coil with protestation! \_Tears the letter.
Go, get you gone, and let the papers lie:
You would be fing'ring them, to anger me.
Luc. She makes it strange;*^ but she would be best pleas'd
To be so anger'd with another letter. [Exit.
Jul. Nay, would I were so anger'd with the same!
0 hateful hands, to tear such loving words!
Injurious wasps! to feed on such sweet honey
And kill the bees, that yield it, with your stings!
1 'U kiss each several paper for amends.
Look, here is writ — 'kind Julia:' — unkind Julia!
As in revenge of thy ingratitude,
I throw thy name against the bruising stones.
Trampling contemptuously on thy disdain!
And here is writ — 'love-wounded Proteus:' —
Poor wounded name! my bosom, as a bed,^
Shall lodge thee, till thy wound be throughly heal'd;
And thus I search it with a sovereign kiss.^^
II. 5
34 THE TWO GENTLEMEN OF VETIONA. [acti. sc. in.
But twice, or thrice, was Proteus written down.
Be calm, good wind, blow not a word away,
Till I have found each letter in the letter.
Except mine own name: that some whirlwind bear
Unto a ragged, fearful, hanging rock,
And throw it thence into the raging sea!
Lo, here in one line is his name twice writ, —
'Poor forlorn Proteus, passionate Proteus, —
To the sweet Julia;' that I '11 tear away, —
And yet I will not, sith so prettily
He couples it to his complaining names;
Thus will I fold them one upon another:
Now^ kiss, embrace, contend, do what you will.
Re-enter Lucetta.
Luc. Madam, dinner is ready, and your father stays.
Jul. Well, let us go.
Luc. Wliat, shall these papers lie like tell-tales here?
Jul. If you respect them, best to take them up.
Luc. Nay, I was taken up for laying them down:
Yet here they shall not lie, for catching cold.*''
Jul. I see you have a month's mind*^ to them.
Luc. Ay, madam, you may say what sights you see;
I see things too, although you judge I wink.
Jul. Come, come; will 't please you go? [Exeunt,
SCENE III. — The same. A Room in Antonio's House.
E^iter Antonio and Panthino.*^
Ant. Tell me, Panthino, what sad talk*^ was that,
Wherewith my brother held you in the cloister?
Pan. 'T was of his nephew Proteus, your son.
Ant. Why, what of him?
Pan. He wonder'd that your lordship
Would suffer him to spend his youth at home;
While other men, of slender reputation,^"
Put forth their sons to seek preferment out:
Some, to the ^^'ars, to try their fortune there;
Some, to discover islands far away;'^
Some, to the studious universities.
For any, or for all these exercises,
He said that Proteus, your son, was meet:
ACT I. sc. III.] THE TWO GENTLEMEN OE VEEONA.
35
And did request me to importune you,
To let him spend his time no more at home,
Which would be great impeachment to his age,'^
In having known no travel in his youth.
Ant. Nor need'st thou much importune me to that.
Whereon this month I have been hammering.
I have consider'd well his loss of time.
And how he cannot be a perfect man.
Not being tried and tutor'd in the world:
Experience is by industry achiev'd.
And perfected by the swift course of time:
Then, tell me, whither were I best to send him?
Pmi. I think your lordship is not ignorant
How his companion, youthful Valentine,
Attends the emperor in his royal court.^^
Ant. I know it well.
Pan. 'T were good, I think, your lordship sent him thither:
There shall he practise tilts and tournaments.
Hear sweet discourse, converse with noblemen.
And be in eye of every exercise
Worthy his youth and nobleness of birth.
Ant. I like thy counsel : well hast thou advis'd :
And, that thou may'st perceive how well I like it,
The execution of it shall make known:
Even with the speediest expedition,
I will despatch him to the emperor's court.
Pan. To-morrow, may it please you, Don Alphonso,
With other gentlemen of good esteem.
Are journeying to salute the emperor.
And to commend their service to his will.
Ant. Good company; with them shall Proteus go:
And, — in good time.^*
Enter Proteus readmg.
Now will we break with him.^^
Pro. Sweet love! sweet lines! sweet life!
Here is her hand, the agent of her heart;
Here is her oath for love, her honour's pawn:
O, that our fathers would applaud our loves.
To seal our happiness with their consents!
O heavenly Julia!
Ant. How now? what letter are you reading there?
36
THE TWO GENTLEMEN OE VEUONA. [act i. sc. hi.
Pro. May 't please your lordship, 'tis a word or two
Of commendations sent from Valentine,
Deliver'd by a friend that came from him.
Ant. Lend me the letter ; let me see what news.
Pro. There is no news, my lord; but that he writes
How happily he lives, how well-belov'd.
And daily graced by the emperor;
Wishing me Avith him, partner of his fortune.
Ant. And how stand you affected to his wish?
Pro. As one relying on your lordship's will.
And not depending on his friendly wish.
Ant. My will is something sorted with his wish:
INluse not that I thus suddenly proceed,^*^
For what I will, I will, and there an end.^^
I am resolv'd that thou shalt spend some time
With Valentinus in the emperor's court;
Wliat maintenance he from his friends receives.
Like exhibition thou shalt have from me.^^
To-morrow be in readiness to go:
Excuse it not, for I am peremptory.
Pro. My lord, I cannot be so soon provided;
Please you, deliberate a day or two.
Ant. Look, what thou want'st shall be sent after thee:
i^.o more of stay; to-morrow thou must go. —
Come on Panthino; you shall be employ 'd
To hasten on his expedition. [Exeunt Antonio and Panthino.
Pro. Thus have I shunn'd the fire, for fear of burning.
And drench'd me in the sea, where I am drown'd:
I fear'd to show my father Julia's letter.
Lest he should take exceptions to my love;
And, with the vantage of mine own excuse.
Hath he excepted most against my love.^^
O, how this spring of love resembleth
The uncertain glory of an April day;
Which now shows all the beauty of the sun,
And by and by a cloud takes all awayl^^^
Re-enter Panthino.
Pan. Sir Proteus, your father calls for you;
He is in haste; therefore, I pray you, go.
Pro. Why, this it is! my heart accords thereto;
And yet a thousand times it answers, No.
[Exeunt.
flotts la t|t Jfirst %tt
^ My loving Proteus.
" The old copy has — Protheus ; but this is merely the antiquated mode of
spelling Proteus. See the Princely Pleasures at Kenelworth Castle, by G.
Gascoigne, 1587, where 'Prot/^eus appeared, sitting on a dolphyns back.' Again,
in one of Barclay's Eclogues : ' Like as ProtJietis oft chaungeth his stature.'
Shakespeare's character was so called, from his disposition to change. Thus in
the True Tragedie of Hichard, Duke of Yorke, 1595, on which Shakespeare
formed the Third Part of King Henry VI. : 'And for a need change shapes with
Protheus.'' Again in Greene's Phdomela : ' Nature foreseeing how men would
devise more wiles than Protheus.' Our ancestors seem to have been fond of
introducing the letter h into proper names to which it does not belong ; and
hence, even to this day, our common christian name Antony is written improperly
Anthony. Even scholars shewed the same disregard to propriety in this respect as
the unlearned. Thus Sir John Davys, in his fine eulogy on the English
law, prefixed to his Eeports, folio 1615 : — 'a greater combustion than that which
happened when the chariot of the Sun did want a guide but half a day, as is
lively expressed in the fable of Phaethon.' So also Sackville, in the Mirrour for
Magistrates : 'And Phaethon now near reaching to his race.' Tubervile, in his
Tragical Tales, 1567, has Thunis for Tunis. Lydgate, in like manner, has
Thelephus and Anthenor; and in an old translation of the Gesta Romanorum,
printed about 1580, we find in p. 1, Athalanta for Atalanta." This note is
entirely taken from Steevens and Malone.
^ Home-heeping youth have ever homely wits.
It is for homely features to keep home,
They had their name thence. — Milton.
^ Than, living dully sluggardiz'd at home.
Bully, slothfuUy, with dulness. " "Why stay'st thou dully here." — The Young
King, or the Mistake, 1698.
* With shapeless idleness.
" The expression is fine, as implying that idleness prevents the giving any
form or character to the manners." — TFarburton.
^ Some rare note-worthy olject in thy travel.
"What can a man better present both to give contentment, and some cure to
these false shapes, then this treatise, which having beene collected many yeares
38
NOTES TO THE FIUST ACT.
agoe, and generally received with all the applause and liking due to so witty
a speaker, is now, for your better recreation, newly augmented and adorned
with many excellent and note-ioortliy essayes of wit. — Copley's Wits, Fits,
and Fancies, 1614, pref.
AthenjEus relates in his fore-mentioned booke, in the night did eat up
his own wife, and in the morning finding her hands in his devouring jawes,
slew himselfe, the fact being so hainous and note-worthy. — Optich Glasse of
Humors, 1C39,
For I will he thy head's-man, Valentine.
Beadsman, as Nares observes, from led, a prayer, and from counting the
beads, the way used by the Romish church in numbering their prayers ; a prayer-
man. Commonly one who prays for another. The office of a headsman is
thus expressed by Herrick :
Yet in my depth of grief I'de be
One that should drop his heads for thee.
Also he (Mahomet) hadde, that the men of his lawe sliolde every year,
if tliey myghte, goo in too Goddis house, for too hydde thyer hedes. And
they sliolde throwe oute stones, through hooles of the walles, as it were for
to stone the devyll, and said that Abraham made that house for hys chyldren
Ismael}i;es, for they shold there hyd theyer hedes. — Trevisa.
In later times the term meant little more than servant, as we now conclude
letters. Many of the ancient petitions and letters to great men were addressed to
them by their "poor daily orators and headsmen^ Nicholas Breton in one place
signs himself as "Your Laydship's sometime unworthy poet, and now and ever
poore Beadman," and the expression was exceedingly usual in the sense of a small
pensioner or dependant.
I shal assoille thee myself
Eor a seem of whete,
And also be thi hedeman.
And here wel thi message
Amonges knyghtes and clerkes.
Conscience to torne. — Fiers Floughman, p. 45.
And even by that single bountie dubble stitch him unto mee to be my devoted
headsman till death, but not a pinnes head or a moath's pallet roome gets he of
anie farther contribution. — Nash's Have loith you to Saffron Walden, 1596. An
out-brothership or headsman's stipend of ten shillings a yeare. — Ibid. " Item, to
Sir Torche, the Kinges bede-man at the Bodes in Grenewiche for one yere now
ended, xl. s." — Privy Fiirse Expences, 1530.
I credit thee so well, that what is mine,
My flocks, lodge, and Vrania, all is thine.
This day I will possesse thee of them, and retire
My weary thoughts from covetous desire
Of this uncertain good, and only spend
My houres in thanks and prayers, that ere my end.
So great a good befell me ; I tell thee, son,
I only be thy headsman, and return
On thee and thine, as payment for my board, unnumbred blessings.
Bahorne's Poor Man's Comfort, 1655.
NOTES TO THE FIRST ACT.
39
Mr. Eairholt selects the annexed engraving in illustration: — "Erom the
drawing of the Funeral of Abbot Islip, in Westminster Abbey, 1522. The
drawing is elaborately executed on a roll of vellum, and
is the property of the Society of Antiquaries of London,
who published outline engravings therefrom in their
Vetusta Monumenta."
How young Leander cross' d the Hellespont.
The story is again alluded to in the third act; and as
Shakespeare has quoted elsewhere a line from Marlowe's
poem, the probability is that it was in his thoughts
when writing the present comedy. Marlowe's Hero and
Leander was entered on the books of the Stationers'
Company in September, 1593, but it was not published
till 1598, or rather no copy of an earlier date than
1598 is known to exist. There is no improbability
in the supposition that the work had been seen by
Shakespeare when only in manuscript.
^ Over shoes in love. . . . over hoots in love.
What, Pimpe ? what. Pander ? why was not this the Lord Nonsuch ? did I
not see his chaine? nay, prethee, say 'twas not he; nay, sweare it too : over shooes,
over hootes, since yee have waded to the bellie in sinne, nay now goe deeper even
to the breast and heart. — Cupid'' s Whirligig.
Ev'n so seem'd 1, amidst the guarded troope
Of gold-lac'd actors, yet all could not droope
My fixed mind, for where true courage roots,
The proverb sayes, Once over shooes, o'r hoots.
The Worhes of John Taylor, 1630.
I have met a meanes fit for my purpose already : Mopsa Dameta's onely
daughter is over shooes in love with me, and to her lie feigne extreame ardor of
affection, and make her the shadow under which He court the true substance of
my divine Hippolita. — lie of Gulls, 1633.
I leave them therefore to be fathom'd by this gentlemans plummet. He has
been over shoes already, ay, and over boots too. — The Tramproser Mehears'd, or
the Fifth Act of Mr. Bayess Play, 12mo, 1673.
^ For you are over boots in love.
"When Proteus says that Leander, who crossed the Hellespont, was more than
over shoes in love, Valentine catches him up — ' 'tis true : no doubt of it : he must
have been more than over shoes in love ; for you, who never swam the Hellespont
at aU, are actually over boots in love.' The reasoning here seems very plain. If
Proteus, without swimming the Hellespont, was over hoots in love, surely the very
least that could be said of Leander, who did swim it, must be that he was more
than over shoes in love." — Blachioood'' s Magazine, Aug. 1853. The Perkins
MS. reads hut you 8)'c., one of the numerous instances which indicate that the
writer of that annotated volume was some conceited personage who thought
himself capable of improving the text, not one having access to any authority.
^° JVay, give me not the boots.
A proverbial phrase, equivalent to, do not make a laughing-stock of me. "//
luy Va bailie belle, he hath sold him a bargaine, he hath given him the boots, a
40
NOTES TO THE EIEST ACT.
glecke or gudgeon." — Cot grave. "Bailler foin en come, to give one the boots, to
sell him a bargaine." — Ibid.
Sil. But what are you for a man? methinks you loke as pleaseth God.
Acc. What, doo you give me the hoots ? Half. Whether will they, here be right
coblers cuts. — Lillg's Mother Bomhie, 1594.
Did not you say first you would mall us all, and then cald me nit, nit ? 'Tis
not your big belly, nor your fat bacon, can cary it away, if ye offer us the boots ?
—The Weakest goeth to the Wall, 1618.
Some of the commentators incline to the opinion that there is, in the text, an
allusion to the ancient engine of torture termed the hoots, "the Scottish bootes,"
as it is called in Fathomachia, 1630, p. 29. The passages from Cotgrave, above
quoted, seem decisive as to the meaning of the phrase intended to be used by
Shakespeare. The equivalent phrase, to sell a bargain, occurs in the third act of
Love's Laboiu-'s Lost.
However, hut a folly bought with wit.
In any case, if love be won, it is only a folly purchased at the expense
of wisdom ; if it be lost, it is wisdom vanquished by folly.
So, by your circumstance.
There is here a play on the word circumstance. Proteus uses it in the sense
of circumstance of ivords, Valentine in that of circumstance of deeds or conduct.
" To use great circumstance of woordes, to goe about the bushe." — Barefs
Alvearie, 1580. ''Circumstance, a space of time or an argument." — Williams''
Poetical Piety, 1677. "A circumstance, or circuit of words, compasses, or going
about the bush." — Minsheu. The fourth chapter in Sir H. Gilbert's Discourse of
a Liscoverie for anew Passage to Cataia, 4to, Lond. 1576, is entitled, " To prove,
by circumstance, that the Northwest passage hath beene sayled thorough out."
What shaU it nede great circumstance to showe
To prove us noble ? you knowe't well enough.
The Newe Metamorphosis, 1600, MS.
Is eaten by the cafiher ere it blow.
Canher, a kind of caterpillar. Shakespeare frequently repeats this parallel, as
in the following instances collected by Warton. Three times in the Sonnets:
Eor canker vice the sweetest buds doth love. . . .
And loathsom canker lives in sweetest bud. . . .
Which, like a canker in thy fragrant rose.
Doth spot the beauty of thy budding name.
And of a rose again, which had feloniously stolen the boy's complexion and
breath, ibid. xcix.
But for his theft, in pride of all his growth,
A vengefull canker eat him up to death.
Again, Tempest, Act i.
— Something stain'd
With grief, that's beauty's canker.
And in the First Part of Henry VI, Act ii.
Hath not thy rose a canker, Somerset ?
And in Hamlet, Act i.
The canker galls the infants of the spring
Too oft before their buttons are disclos'd.
NOTES TO THE EIEST ACT.
41
And in King Mchard 11. , Act ii.
But now will canker sorrow eat my bud.
And in tlie Eape of Lucrece,
Why should the worm intrude the maiden bud ?
And in A Midsummer Nighfs Dream, the fairies are employed,
Some to kill cankers in the musk-rose buds.
Of Caterpillers, or Palmer TFormes, called of some Canhers. — Now I am
come to speake of caterpiUers, sometimes the destroiers and wasters of Egypt : as
well in regard of the great difference that is found in their severall sorts, as for
their great dignity and use, wherein some of them are most notable and
excellent. Some thinke that Eruca, which is Englished a catterpiller, hath his
derivation ah erodendo, which is not altogether improbable : for they gnaw of and
consume by eating, both leaves, boughes, and flowers : yea, and some fruits also,
as I have often scene in peaches. — TopselVs Serpents, 1608.
But as the sweetest rose is soonest subject to canker, and the moth doth
soonest breed within the finest cloth, even so abuse is soonest wrought by this, for
that it is nearest the truth, which ignorance doth most pollute. — Baret on
Horsemansliipi 1618.
Instead of them the caterpillar hants,
And canJcer iDorm among the tender plants.
That here and there in nooks and corners grew.
Of cormorants and locusts not a few.
Browne's Britannia's Pastorals, book ii, song 1.
^* At the road.
A bay or open harbour for ships. Coles translates it by sinus. The word
occurs again in Act ii., sc. 4. "A road for ships, spiaggia del mare," Howell.
And thither will I hring thee.
That is, accompany thee ; a common mode of expression. There is a phrase
still in use in the North of England, "to bring one going," to bring one on one's
way, to accompany a person part of a journey ; and to hring gwain, a West
country phrase of similar import. " Courteously and lovingly brought on their
way by the Church," marg. note on Acts, xv., 3, fol. ed. 1640, Amst. " 1 pray
you, my Lord, to commune with him, whiles I hring my Lord of Durham going,''
Philpot's Examination. " To bring one on his way, deduco," Coles. " She went
very lovingly to bring him on his way to horse," Woman Killed with Kindness,
1617. "You'll bring me onward, brother," Eevengers Tragsedie, 1608.
Tom asked the man which road he intended to travel ? Nay, said the other,
1 must go back with the horse 1 hired. Quoth Tom, what did you give for the
hire of him ? Live shillings, said the man. Well, said Tom, 1 will hring you so
far in the way hack, and pay the five shillings. The place appointed being two
miles off, he sent for some companions to meet him. — The Mad Pranks of Tom
Tram, Son-in-law to Mother Winter, 12mo, n. d.
To Milan let me hear from thee hy letters.
That is, let me hear from thee by letters addressed to Milan. A similar ellipsis
occurs in the Comedy of Errors, — " to excuse your breach of promise to the
Porcupine," that is, to meet me at the Porcupine. The second foho unnecessarily
reads, at Milan.
n. 6
42
NOTES TO THE EIEST ACT.
It came to me in letters t\A^o clayes since,
That this Phiine Dcahng serves the Eairy Queene,
And will no more be scene in Babilon.
Decker's Whore of Babylon, 1G07.
/ leave myself, my friends, and all for love.
" The old copy has — I love myself. The correction was made by Mr. Pope.
In Antony and Cleopatra, Act V. we have in the old copy — Eor Caisar cannot
leave to be ungentle — for live to be ungentle." — Malone.
And I have play'd the sheep in losing him.
Speed here plays on the words ship and sheep, which were, in Shakespeare's
time, pronounced ahke. The orthography ship for sheep occurs several times
amongst the records of the Corporation of Stratford-on-Avon, (Chamberlains'
Accounts for 1G12, &c.) So the old proverb, "Lose not the sheep for a ha'porth
of tar," has been corrupted into, " spoil not the ship for a ha'porth of tar," and is
now usually understood in the latter sense. A curious illustration is afforded by
the old token here engraved, which was issued
by William Eye at the Sheepe in Rye, 1652,
^^^^^^^^^ the figure of the vessel clearly showing what
^^^^\ ^^^^ ^^8'^^ intended; and in the British
Museum is preserved another token, "J. D.
''^^^p'' in Shepe Yard : his halfepeny : Avithout
Temple Bar," the figure being a ship in
full sail. In the will of Agnes Arden, 1579,
sheep is spelt sheepe and shipe j and Malone
observ^es that in Playford's ' Dancing Master,' ed. 1698, in the table there is the
name of a dance, ' Three sheep skins,' while, in the page referred to, it is 'Three
ship skins.'
Item, that no man have hys or tlier shyp goynge or pasturynge in the
bancroft over and above on oure in a day in peyn of every off'endor to forfet and
losse for every fait xij.c?. only excepte straungeres for ther bayt, and that no man
have eny swyne goynge ther unryngyd in lyke peyne. — Corporation 3£SS.,
Stratford upon Avon, 1553.
A hood shall flap up and downe heere, and this ship-sTein cap sliall be
put off. — Bechers Satiromastix, 1602, ap. Dyce.
The following curious notices of corrupt pronunciation are taken from Coote's
English Schoolemaster, 1632, —
''Mast. I know not what can easily deceive you in writing, unlesse it be by
imitating the barbarous speech of your country people, whereof I will give you a
tast, thereby to give you an occasion to take heed, not of these only, but of any
like. Some people speake thus : The mell standeth on the hel, for the mill
standeth on the hill : so knet for knit, bredg for bridg, knaw for gnaw, knat
for gnat, belk for belch, yerb for herb, grisse for grasse, yelk for yolk, ream for
realme, afeard for afraid, durt for dirt, gurt for girth, stomp for stamp, ship for
sheepe, hafe for halfe, sample for example, parfit for perfect, dauter for daughter,
certen for certaine, cercher for cerchiefe, leash for lease, hur for her, sur and
suster, for sir and sister, to spat for to spit, &c."
" A lac'd mutton.
This was a common cant term for a courtezan, who was also, like a sheep,
called a mutton. Speed, in his eagerness to quibble, and remembering his
receiving no pay, is not very complimentary. Mr. Knight remarks that the
designation is received by Proteus very patiently, and seems to doubt its meaning
NOTES TO THE EIUST ACT.
43
in the above sense; but the whole scene tends to exhibit Proteus as a mere
sensual lover, one bandying coarse allusions. We meet with nothing of the kind
in the subsequent dialogue between Valentine and Speed. The following curious
lines in the WorJees qf John Taylor the Water-Poet, fol. 1630, afford a good
illustration of the quibbling in the text :
And heere's a mystery profound and deepe,
There's sundry sorts of mutton are no sheepe:
Lac'd Mutton which let out themselves to hire,
Like hackneys, who'l be fir'd, before they tire.
The man or men which for such mutton hungers,
Are (by their Corporation) mutton-mongers :
Which is a brother-hood so large and great,
That if they had a Hall, I would intreat
To be their Clarke, or keeper of accounts,
To shew them unto what their charge amounts :
My braines in numbring then would grow so quicke,
I should be Master of Arithmeticke :
All states, degrees, and trades, both bad and good.
Afford some members of this Brotherhood
Too much of one thing's good for nought (they say)
He therefore take this needlesse dish away:
Eor should I too much of Lac'd Mutton write,
I may o'recome my readers stomacke quite.
"Laced mutton, garse, putain, fitle de joye; a mutton-monger, putier,'''
Sherwood's Dictionarie, 1632. "Laced mutton, scortum,^' Coles. "Why, here
is good lacd mutton, as I promist you," Shoo-makers Holy-day, 1631. "And I
smealt he loved lase mutton well," Promos and Cassandra, 1578.
He that wold not stick so to extoU stale rotten lac'd mutton, will, like a true
Millanoys, sucke figges out of an asses fundament, or doo anie thing. — Nash's
Have with you to Saffron Walden-, 1596.
Laz. Pilcher, Cupid hath got me a stomacke, and I long for lac^d mutton.
Pit. Plaine mutton without a lace would serve. — Blurt Master Constable, 1602.
A fine lac'd mutton.
Or two ; and either has her frisking husband:
Tiiat reades her the Corranto every weeke. — Ben Jonson.
Marquess of melanchoUy and mad folkes. Grand Signior of griefs and groans,
Lord of lamentations, Heroe of hie-hoes. Admiral of aymees, and Monsieur of
mutton-lac'd. — Heyicood's Love's Mistress, 1640.
But pray, Ciceley, withall, neglect not my breakfast. Rising early and
walking gets us good stomacks : yet I could be content to fast with such lacd
mutton and a good cuUice more then halfe a morning. — Totenham- Court, 1638.
And what d'ye think is aU their gains.
But . . . and labour for their pains ;
Better of pig to be a glutton.
Than thus to feed upon Lacd Mutton.
Poor Bohins Ahnanacic, 1694^.
Several other allusions to laced-mutton occur in Poor Bobin. " Those
who with lac'd mutton trade," 1707; "married men that thus run after lac'd
mutton," 1746, &c.
"Speed calls himself a lost mutton, because he had lost his master, and
NOTES TO THE ElllST ACT.
because Protlieus had been proving him a sheep. !But why does he call the
lady a lac'd nuitton? Wenchers are to this day called nuitton-mongcrs; and
consequently the object of their i)assion must, by the meta})hor, be tiie nuitton ;
and Motteux has rendered this passage of llabelais, in the prologue of his fourth
book, Cailles coiphees m'u]nonnement cJiautarts, in this manner ; Coated quails and
lac'd nuitton waggisliUj shujingr — Theobald.
"A laced mutton was in our author's time so established a term for a
courtezan, that a street in Clerkenwell, which was much frequented by women of
the town, was then called Mutton-lane. It seems to have been a phrase of
the same kind as the Erench expression — caille coifee, and might be rendered in
that language, mouton en corset. This appellation appears to have been as
old as the time of King Henry HI. " Item sequitur gravis poena corporalis,
sed sine amissione vitte vel membrorum, si raptiis fit de concuhina legitima,
vel alia quastum faciente, sine delectu personarum: has quidem oves debet
rex tueri pro pace sua," Bracton de Legibus, lib. ii. — Malone. Mutton Lane
is mentioned, with other streets of questionable character, in A New Trich to cheat
the Devil, 1639.
Search all the alleys. Spittle or Pickthatch,
Turnbull, the Bank-side, or the Minories,
White Eriars, St. Peter's Street, and Mutton Lane.
In illustration of the probable circumstance that the term laced, in this
phrase, took its origin from dress, Mr. Eairholt
has selected the accompanying engraving.
"It is taken," he observes, " from the print by
Israel Van Mechlin (circa 1500), known as
the Herodiade, and detailing the principal
incidents in the life of Herodias ; whose
character was generally represented by
mediseval sculptors and artists as immodest
and vicious. She is here delineated in a
loose dress, laced down the front, but not
drawn close ; in the original print she is
dancing with a man, who places his arm
round her waist, and is habited in the
style of a prodigal of the period." Deloney,
in his Thomas of Reading, writes, "no meat
pleased him so well as mutton, such as was
laced in a red petticoat."
Tou are a- sir ay.
A quibble, depending on the adjective astray being taken also as a sub-
stantive. A stray animal was called a stray. "Item, That non shall knowe,
take uppe, or dryve away, anie waiefe or stray, or any thing that shall grow
due, or be forfeited to her highness, or anye wrecke within this lordshipp,
but shaU give knowledge thereof to the steward, or his deputye there, or
the baihfFe of the libertyes of Eournes for the time beinge, within as short
tyme as may convainiently be given, as hearetofore liathe been accustomed,
sub pena iij.s. \\\].d." — 3£S. Court Boll.
21 iPfom a pound to a pin ? fold it over and over.
This is the punctuation of the first folio, but doubts may perhaps be
entertained as to its correctness. The quibble on the term pin-fold is expansive,
even for Speed.
NOTES TO THE EIUST ACT.
45
22 She did.
I have ventured to introduce this and the next line, spoken by Proteus,
in preference to Theobald's alteration. Some addition to the text is absolutely-
necessary, and Theobald's does not agree with what Speed says afterwards, —
"You mistook, sir ; I say, she did nod : and you ask me if she did nod ; and
I say, I." Eeed cites a similar play upon words from Wits Private Weattli, 1612,
— " if you see a truU scarce, give her a nod, but follow her not, lest you prove a
noddy " and Minsheu quaintly observes that the term is applied to a fool,
" because he nods when hee should speake." There is no allusion in the text to
the game of cards called noddy, but solely to the ordinary meaning of the word, a
simpleton. "A foolish feUow, a noddie, a guU," Minsheu's Spanish Dictionarie,
1599, p. 55; and in Damon and Pythias, 1571, "The king delighted in me;
now 1 am but a noddy."
Next, in the ancient famous Cambrian tongue,
To call thee noddy, he accounts no wrong.
T' interpret this I need to goe to schoole,
I wot not what he meanes, except a ( ).
TForhes of Taylor the Water-Poet, 1630.
It is scarcely necessary to observe that, in Speed's speech, the / is preserved
instead of changing it to the modern ay, on account of the quibble.
2^ No, not so much as a ducat.
" The ducats current in Yerona and Milan at this period were the Venetian
coinage, and they wiU be more appropriately described and engraved in the
Merchant of Yenice." — F. W. Fairholt.
2* In telling your mind.
That is, as hard to you when you tell your mind to her, i. e. address her.
The second folio unnecessarily reads, her mind, and Perkins and Jackson,
you her mind, the former also reading, "that brought to her your mind,"
and thus clumsily making verse of it, —
Sir, I could perceive nothing at all from her letter.
No, not so much as ducat for delivering your letter ;
And being so hard to me that brought to her your mind,
I fear she '11 prove as hard to you in teUing you her mind.
There have been few things in Shakespearian criticism so extraordinary,
as the infatuation which has prompted one of the editors to print such stuff
as this for the restored language of Shakespeare.
2^ / thanh yoti, you have testervCd me.
Testern, corrupted from teston, was, in Shakespeare's time and for long
afterwards, merely the name of the sixpence. After the decease of Queen
Mary, observes Harrison, "the ladie Elizabeth, hir sister, and now our most
gratious queene, sovereigne and princesse, did finish the matter wholie, utterly
abolishing the use of copper and brasen coine, and converting the same into guns
and great ordinance, she restored sundrie coines of fine silver, as peeces of
halfepenie farding, of a penie, of three halfe pence, peeces of two pence,
of three pence, of foure pence called the groat, of six pence usiiallie named
the testone, and shilling of twelve pence, whereon she hath imprinted hir
owne image and emphaticall superscription." Camden, in his Eemaines, ed.
46
NOTES TO THE EIRST ACT.
1G29, p. 175, mentioning the base coinage of the time of Henry and Edward,
observes "that some of them, which was then called testons, because the
King's head was thereon figured, contained but twopence farthing in silver,
and other fourpence halfe-penny;" and, according to Holme, Acad. Arm. iii. 2,
p. 28, "A sixpence or tester answereththe King's fourpence in all respects, having
this mark vi. or a rose ; if it have neither, it is a half faced groat, and goeth for
no more ; it is an inch in diameter." The following account of this coin is also
worth quoting: — "'Testons, or, as we commonly call them, testers, from a head
that was upon them, were coin'd 34 H. 8. Sir H. Spelman says they are a
French coin, of the value of 186?., and he does not know but they might
have gone for as much in England. He says it was brass, and covered
over with silver, and went in H. 8 days for \2id., but 1 Ed. 6 it was brought
down to Oc?., and then to Qcl., which still retains the name, and in an. 1559 to 4c?.
ob. Stow says there was a second sort of testons, which in 1559 was cried down
to 2d. q., and a third sort that was made unpassable at any rate. 'Tis certain
there were very good ones coined in E. 6 time, and they have still continued
under all princes, under the same name, and are the usefuUest pieces we have." —
Clironicon Preciosnm, 1707. It appears certain that the tester of Shakespeare
was the sixpence, and that, although it varied in value at an earlier period, it was
often considered, even in the middle of the sixteenth century, as synonymous
with it. The following observations on the original teston are from the pen of
My. Eairholt :
" The most remarkable of the continental coins, after the series of the
German emperors, were those of the independant Dukes of Milan. Eor many
centuries the general coinage of Europe presented only a series of crosses, badges
of cities, or emblematic figures; and it was not tiU the latter half of the
fifteenth century that any attempt was made at portraiture on money; an
unmeaning full face being used continually as the type of every ruler. The
first successful attempt at change was made by the Duke whose coin is here
engraved, and who reigned from 1466 to 1476, when he was murdered. It is
of silver, having on the obverse his portrait with this legend abbreviated —
GALEAZVS MAEIA STORTZIA VICECOMES DVX MEDIOLANI
and on the reverse the family arms, and the inscription, also abbreviated,
PAPI^ ANGIEBiEQUE COMES AC JANV^ DOMINVS,
the characteristic feature of
these coins being the head of the
ruler, they at once received the
generic title of testone. They
were immediately imitated in
Erance and England. Louis
XII. introducing his portrait
in profile ; and the coin re-
ceiving the name of testons,
or great heads. Henry VIL
introduced the custom to
England in the year 1503, when he issued an entire new coinage. This head
being like its prototype represented in profile ; the original name for the
coin being anglicized into testoon and testern. Erom this period the coinage has
always borne the head of the Sovereign."
The first folio reads cestern'd, corrected in the second folio of 1633. Latimer,
in one of his sermons, speaks of the teston being w^orth tenpence, which is.
NOTES TO THE EIEST ACT.
47.
however, merely a proof that its value was subject to fluctuation. According to
Machyn, in his diary for the year 1556 : — " The xxiij. day of Desember was
a proclamasyou thrugh London, and shall be thrugh the quen('s) reuym, tliat
watt man somover thay be that doysse forsake testorns, and do not take them for
y].d. a pesse for corne or vetelles or any odur thynges or ware, that they
to be taken and browth a-for the mayre or shreyff, baylle, Justus a pesse,
or constabuUe, or odur offesers, and thay to ley them in presun tyll the quen and
her conseil, and thay to remayn ther plesur, and to stand boyth body and goodes
at her grace('s) plesur." — In proclamations of the early part of Edward VL's
reign, these coins are described as " pi.-ces of xi].d. commonly called testons," so
that Spelman is probably mistaken in asserting they were reduced in value
as early as 1547-8.
The assertion of Stowe respecting the inferior testons will be well illustrated
by the following extract from a proclamation of Queen Elizabeth, dated December
23rd, 1560 : — "The Queues majestic beying infourmed that, in some partes of her
realme, sundrye either ignoraunt or malicious people doe spread rumours abroad,
that the base testons of foure pence halfepeny should not be currant after the end
of January next : hath thought meet (lest the lyke false and seditious rumours
might be further spread), to doe allmaner her subjectes to understand, that it hath
beene alwayes and so is meant by her majestic, that all maner the base monyes,
which hath ben of late decreed by proclamacion, saving the testons of twopence
farthyng, shoulde continue and be currant stiU, and so taken and paid from
subjecte to subjecte, at the values as they be rated by former proclamacion, and so
to continue untill the same may be by her majesties subjectes brought to the mint
at London, and there exchaunged for new sterlynge monyes, with thallowance to
the brynger of three pence in the pound. Wherin such expedition is made, as in
a matter of such a moment, possyble hytherto could be, and shall be noAve from
day to day much more. And as for the peeces of two pence farthing, it is and
was meant and declared in the proclamacion, that they shoulde be taken as
currant money untyll the last day of January, that day beying the ende of foure
monethes from Michaelmas laste. And yet neverthelesse, because within that
tyme it shall be harde to bryng up and make exchaunge of the same in the mynt
with newe monyes: her majestic is well pleased, that whosoever shall brynge anye
of the same testons of two pence farthyng after the saide last day of January to
the sayde mint at London, within the space of three moneths after, shall have for
the same in newe sylver two pence farthing : so as her majestic meaneth, as much
as in her shaU be, to beare herein with the burden of her poore subjects. And
her pleasure is, that this shoulde be notified to all her loving subjectes: gevyng also
straight commandement that no maner person doe refuse to take in paiment
any of the said base monyes, that is to say the fourepence halpeny, the threhalf-
pence, the threfarthings, at the values rated by the former proclamation, at any
time hereafter : neither the other base testons of twopence farthing at the same
rate, untill the laste day of January ; and in anye wyse to cause all persons
doying the contrary, to be severely punished as obstinate and sedicious."
Being destind to a drier death on shore.
This proverb is alluded to three times in the Tempest. "He that is born
to be hang'd, shall never be drown'd." — Bays English Broverls, ed. 1678, p. 104.
It wanted but little that he and his horse had been lost, not so much by
the depth of the water, as the fury of the current ; but he had a proverb in his
favour, and he got out of the water, though with difficulty enough, not being born
to be drowned, as I shall observe afterwards in its place. — History of Colonel
Jach, 1723.
48
NOTES TO THE EIKST ACT.
" Sttch a loortliless post.
A post was a messenger, generally one who carried a letter, a postman before
post-ollices were established. — "Item, the xxvij. daye, paied to a post that came
fro Venice, by way of rewarde, xx.s." — Privy Furse Ewpences, 1530.
"What though such post cannot ride post
TwLxt Exceter and this
In two months space, yet careless they
Those ten whole months to mis. — Ballads, MS. temp. James I.
That every day idUJi parte encounter me.
Here ceast the parte of all the gods assembled.
Then mightie Jove rose from his golden throne.
By all the gods to's station tended on.
Virgil, translated hy John Vicars, 1632.
Sir Eglamour . . . he never should he mine.
This name is possibly adopted from the old English metrical romance of
Eglamour of Artoys, early MS. copies of which are preserved in MS. Cantab. Ef.
ii. 38, MS. Cott. Calig. A. ii, and in the Percy MS. A single leaf of another early
copy is preserved in a MS. belonging to the Earl of EUesmere. It was printed at
Edinburgh, in 1508, by Walter Chepman, and subsequently at London by
Copland and Walley; and the name of the hero seems afterwards to have passed
into a proverbial appellation for an insignificant wooer. So, in Decker's
Sutiromastix, — "Adieu, Sir Eglamour; adieu, lute-string, curtain-rod, goose-
quiU." Most readers will recollect the celebrated ballad, " Sir Eglamore, that
valiant Knight," so often reprinted in the seventeenth century. A copy in the
Merry Drollerie commences as foUows :
Sir Eglamore, that valiant Knight, fa, la, la, la, la.
He put on his sword, and he went to fight, fa, la,
And as he rid o'r hill and dale,
All armed, and in his coat of maile,
Ea, la, la, la, fa, la, la, lalla la.
There starts a huge dragon out of his den, fa, la,
Which had kill'd I know not how many men, fa, la.
But when he see Sir Eglamore,
If you had but heard how the Dragon did roar, fa, la, la, &c.
This dragon he had a plaguy hard hide, fa, la, la,
Which could the strongest steU abide, fa, la, la.
He could not enter him with cuts.
Which vex'd the Knight to his heart bloud, &c.
Should censure thus on lovely gentlemen.
Censure, to remark or pass an opinion upon ; a very common use of the word.
"Nolo, to note, observe, mark, distinguish, censure,"— Coles. Pope reads, a
lovely gentleman; and Perkins, a loving gentleman. Lucetta observes she is
to blame for passing an opinion on such worthy gentlemen. She has given
none on Proteus, and therefore Julia's next observation. There is surely
no necessity for disturbing the original text, and the two emendators above named
have clearly misunderstood the context.
Jjorely is of course equivalent to, worthy of love, amiable. "Lovely or
amiable." — Minsheu. " Saul and Jonathan were lovely and pleasant in their
NOTES TO THE EIEST ACT.
49
lives," 2 Sam. i. 23. The tendency of the MS. corrector to change lovely
into loving here and elsewhere, is one proof among many that might be adduced
of his belonging to a comparatively recent period of criticism, I should say
not earlier than quite the end of the seventeenth or the commencement of
the eighteenth century.
Wliy, iie of all the rest hath never mov'd me.
Mov'd, solicited. "A soliciting, inciting, or moving of one to do a thing,"
Baret's Alvearie, 1580. "To move, solicit, solicito." — Coles.
Wow, hy my modesty, a goodly broJcer!
Broher, a pander or go-between. See Gawin Douglas gl. Yirgil; King John;
Troilus and Cressida; Lover's Complaint, "vows are ever brokers to defiling,"
compared with Hamlet, act i; Beaumont and Eletcher's Valentinian, ed. Dyce, v.
235 ; "And flie, o flie, these bed-brokers unclean," Daniel's Complaint of
Eosamond, 1599. There are twelve very coarse lines in LooJce to It, for He
stable ye, 1604, entitled, "filthy pander," which commence as foUows:
You scurvie fellow, in the broker's suite,
A sattin doublet fac'd with grease and ale.
That of the art of bawdry canst dispute, &c.
Since maids, in modesty, say ^No,^ to that.
A paraphrase of the old proverb, " maids say nay and take," which is given
in Bay's collection, ed. 1678, p. 172. "Good stomaches are soon invited; we
had scarce the maydes manners to say nay and take it, but to take before we
say nay," Bowley's Search for Money, 1609. "Play the maid's part, stiU
answer nay, and take it," Eichard 111., act iii.
Angerly.
The old adverb for angrily. It occurs again in Macbeth, and King John.
"Angrely, acerhe," Huloet's Abcedarium, 1552. "Angerly, irate, iracmide,"
Baret's Alvearie, 1580. "Angerly, in colera,'' HoweU's Lex. Tet. 1660.
Stomach.
Passion or ill-temper. Lucetta plays upon the double meaning of the word.
It is also used for appetite.
Toole up so gingerly.
"In the North of England it implies, gently, carefuUy, without agitation. I
once heard a lady tell her daughter to bring a bottle of wine, and to bring it
gingerly, meaning, without agitation." — Dr. Sherwen. The use of the word in
this sense is almost too universal to warrant its being termed a provincialism ; but
it is very nearly obsolete.
As little by such toys.
Julia plays on the two meanings of the word set, Lucetta having used it in the
musical sense, Julia taking it up, and adding the preposition by. To set by, to
make account of. " David behaved himself more wisely than all, so that he was
much set by," Samuel, xviii. 30. " Eor connynge they set not by," Interlude of
the Eour Elements. So, in an early ballad, —
Eor in this vaine world, which now we live in.
Is nothinge but miserie, sorrowe, and sinne,
Temptation, untruth, contention, and strife,
And riches alone make us set by this life.
50
NOTES TO THE FIRST ACT.
"]\ronoy is every wliere much set by, pliirimi passim fit pecnnia.'" — JFalher on
EN(/Iish l\irticJes, ed. 1003, p. 80. "Do you set so little by me? Itaue abs te
contemnor? — Ter. I set the more by him, Eluris eum feci, quod. — Cic. Fam.
I set nuich by it, In magno pretio habeo. — Sen. Ep. In former times it
was much set ])y, Apud antiquos in pretio fuit. — Macroh. Sat. They set nothing
by it, Pro nihilo (hicuiit. — Cic. Off. NiliiH, parvi, a)stimant, faciunt, habent,
pcndunt. I set nought by them, Ingrata ea habui, atque irrita. — Plant. AmpJi.
lie sets too nuicli by himself, Sibi nimium tribuit. — Quint. I shall set much by
j our letters, Magni erunt mihi tufc litera;. — Cic. Fam. To set light by, Susque
deque habere. — Plant. Ampli^ — Idiomatologia Anglo-Latina, 1670.
Best sing it to the tune of Light 6* love.
Observations on this popular old tune will be found in the notes to 3Iuch
Ado about Nothing.
And mar the concord with too harsh a descant.
" The name of descant is usurped of the musicians in divers significations :
sometime they take it for tlie whole harnionie of many voyces : others sometime for
one of the voyces or parts : and that is, when the whole song is not passing three
voyces : last of all, they take it for singing a part extempore upon a plaine song,
in which sense wee commonly use it ; so that when a man talketh of a descanter,
it must be understoode of one that can, extempore, sing a part upon a plaine
song. — Phi. AVhat is the meane to sing upon a plaine song ? — Ma. To knowe
the distances, both concords and discords. — Phi. What is a concord? — Ma. It
is a mixt sound compact of divers voyces, entring with delight in the eare." —
Morleys Plaine and Easie Introduction onto Practicall MusicliC, 1608.
" Descant," observes Malone, " signified formerly what we now denominate
variations" —
O what a world of descant makes my soul
Upon the voluntary ground of love !
"Eerst for the sithgt of descaunt, it is to wete, as it is aforseide, that ther be
nine acordis of descant, scilicet, a unisoun, a 3de, a 5te, a 6te, a 8te, a lOe, a 12e,
a 13e, a 15e. Of the wheche nine acordis ther be five perfite and four inperfite.
The 5 perfite be these, the unisoun, the 5, the 8, the 12, and the 15. Of
these 5 perfite, ther be 3 ful perfite, and 2° les perfite. The 3 ful perfite be the
unisoun, the 8, and the 15. The 2" lasse perfite be the 5te and the 12e.
The 4 inperfite be these, the 3de, the 6, the 10, and the 13. And with these
acordis of descaunt, every descanter may ryse in voyse and falle with the plain song
excepte out of one perfite into another bothe of one kynde, as it is afor rehersid."
MS. on Music, of the fifteenth century.
''Accino, to synge to an instrument, or to synge a parte, as a treble to a tenour,
or a descant to a playne songe." — Eliotes Dictionarie, ed. Cooper, 1559. Blount
defines descant, "to run division or variety with the voice upon a musical ground
in true measure; to sing off of a ground." — Glossographia, 1681.
Learning may as wel counseU where money doeth want,
But riches causeth tlie common sort to esteem counsell best ;
Eor if a rich man, weU apparelled, have a fine tonge to descant,
He shall be taken for learned, though he know never a letter.
Luptons Comedie intituled All for Money , 1578.
^ There icanteth hut a mean to fill your song.
The tenor in music. "Meane, a parte of a songe, moyen'' Palsgrave.
According to Blount, " an inner part between the treble and base." — Glossographia,
ed. 1681, p. 404.
NOTES TO THE EIEST ACT.
51
Thi organys so hihe begynne to syng tlier messe,
With treble meene and tenor discordyng as I gesse.
Lydgate's Minor Poems, p. 54.
TJtilitie can sing the base full cleane,
And noble honour shall sing the meane.
Life and Bepentaunce of Marie Magdalene, 1567.
In the next line, the first folio reads, by an oversight, toith you unruly base.
Indeed, I hid the base for Proteus.
That is, I challenged you on behalf of Proteus. The phrase is taken from the
old game of prison's-base, or barrs, so called from the bars surrounding the ground
where it was played. One of the earliest allusions to this game is found in the
legend of St. Gregory, MS. Cotton. Cleop. D. ix, repeated, with a few variations,
in a copy in the Auchinlech MS. at Edinburgh:
Gregorye can ful wel his pars.
He can ful muche also of lawe.
And muchel understonde of ars ;
He wende in a day to plawe,
The children ournen at the lars;
A cours he toke with a felawe,
Gregorie the swiftere was.
After hym he leop pas wel gode.
With honden seyseth him with skept ;
That other was unblithe of mode :
Eor tene of herte sore he wept,
And ran home as he were wode.
It is very curious to compare this notice with the following account of the
game given by Strutt : — " The performance of this pastime requires two parties of
equal number, each of them having a hase or home, as it is usually called, to them-
selves, at the distance of about twenty or thirty yards. The players then on either
side taking hold of hands, extend themselves in length, and opposite to each
other, as far as they conveniently can, always remembering that one of them must
touch the hase; when any one of them quits the hand of his fellow and runs into
the field, which is called giving the chace, he is immediately followed by one of his
opponents ; he again is followed by a second from the former side and he by a
second opponent, and so alternately, tiU as many are out as choose to run, every
one pursuing the man he first followed, and no other, and if he overtake him near
enough to touch him, his party claim one towards their game, and both return
home. They then run forth again in like manner, until the number is completed,
which decides the victory; this number is optional, and I am told rarely exceeds
twenty. It is to be observed that every person on either side who touches another
during the chace, claims one for his party, and when many are out, it frequently
happens that many are touched." This author adds that the earliest allusion to
the game he had met with occurs in a proclamation, temp. Edw. Ill, where it is
spoken of as a childish amusement, and prohibited to be played in the avenues of
the palace at Westminster. The following notice is cited by Charpentier, "En
laqueUe place devoit avoir unes barres, done ledit Jaquot estoit roy pour le jour:
et pour ce avoit lors assemble pluseurs gens et de pluseurs villes pour veoir les
dittes barres." — Lit. remiss, ami. 1400 in Beg. 155. Cartoph. reg. cli. 54.
"Bace pleye, harms, harri, harrorum, dantur ludi puerorum,'' Prompt. Parv.
Barri: ludus puerorum. A pley to the harry s.'' — Ortus Vocah.
52
NOTES TO THE EIEST ACT.
Wlioii miistrcd all (licy had, and all the field liad compast round,
And viewd Anchises tonibc, Ihey joj ned all on equall ground ;
Ei)itides to them with noise and whi])})ing gave a sound.
They coursing brake their bands, and three from three dissevered all,
By matches hallc from haU'e, and fast againe they turne at call,
T\'ith weapons breast to breast, and compasse round returning met,
By coursings bickring brave, and race with race entangling let,
Invading skirmish wise, and like the face of battel fight.
And now retire they done, now shew their backs in signe of flight,
Now turning throw their darts, now truce they make with hand in hand ;
Like Labirinthus maze, that men reeport in Candy land.
Is compast deepe in ground with sundry wals, and crookings blinde,
And thousand wandring waies, and entries false for men to finde,
Where tokens none there be, nor scape can none that steps astray,
Such turnings them beguiles, and so deceitful is their way.
None otherwise, the Trojan youth by coursings round about.
Disporting chase themselves, and windings weave both in and out.
Like Dolphin fishes light, that for their pastime daunsing swim,
In mids of deepest seas, and play themselves on water brim.
This kinde of pastime first, and custome boyes to learne at Base;
Ascanius when Alba wals he made did bring in place,
And taught the Latines old, in solemne sort to use the same.
As he sometime a childe, with Trojan youth had made that game.
The Albans then from thence with practise like their children taught.
And thence hath peerlesse Rome, and most of might, the custome caught.
And for their comitries love, with honor due this day it stands.
And yet the name remaines of Trojan boyes, and Trojan bands.
Phaers translation of Virgil, 4jto. Lond. 1600.
" How play of Base came up," marg. note, ibid. Dr. Caius, in his BoJce or
Counseill against the disease commonly called the Sweate, 1553, mentions
"skirmislie at base" as "an exercise for a gentlemanne muche used among the
Italianes." Other notices of the game wiU be found in the notes to the fifth act
of Cymheline.
Sometimes the game itself was called lidding of base. " We have had here a
winter war (as you will have heard) not much unlike our English boy's play of
bidding of base; for when Count Henry Vomdenberg having crossed the Yssell
into the Yelnure, he retired to his passage, and there stopt." — Letter dated
1624. In Lincolnshire, and some other counties, the sport is occasionally called
biddy-base or biUy-base ; and Kennett, MS. Lansd. 1033, speaks of bitty-base as
the Yorkshire term for the game. Compare, also, Spenser :
Whylome thou wont the shepheard's handes to lead
In rimes, in riddles, and in bidding base.
Hence the metaphorical meaning of bidding the base, as above mentioned.
Malone cites the following from Hall's Chronicle, fol. 98 : "The Queen marched
from York to Wakefield, and bade base to the Duke even before his castle."
Again, in a letter from Lord Henry Howard to James King of Scotland, "It were
a vain part for him to contend alone, or to bid base foolishly." So, also, Milton, —
"I do not intend this hot season to bid you the base, through the wide and dusty
champaign of the councils ;" and Shakespeare himself in the following lines in
Venus and Adonis, —
To bid the wind a base he now prepares.
And wh'er he run, or fly, they knew not whether.
NOTES TO THE FIRST ACT.
53
Compare, also, Spenser, —
Ne was Satyrane lier far behind,
But with hke fierceness did ensue the chace:
Whom when the giant saw, he soon resign'd
His former suit, and from them fled apace ;
They after both, and boldly had him base.
She makes it strange.
That is, she puts on an appearance of coldness or indifference respecting it.
" Strange, — Coles.
To feed on such sweet honey, and Mil the hees.
" The wasp is much more hurtful than the hornet, for the hornet nou and then
killeth a bee, but the wasp wasteth the hoonni, wherby many whole stalls doo
perish. Eor besides the harm that shee dooeth liirself, shee oft times setteth the
robber on woork ; who when the wasp hath begun, wil bee reddy to take part
with her : and then all goes to wrak. A wasp is by nature stronger than a bee,
specially in Libra : insomuch that oft times shee breaketh from two or three of
them, thowgh they have all holde of her at once : and perhaps killeth one of them
out of hand. At Cancer, or the Spring beeing hot and drye in the later part of the
former moontli, the wasp beginneth to bee bred : within a moonth after, shee first
appeereth, and in a while, shee beginneth to feede upon ded and weak bees, which
shee qikly cutting of in the middle with hir fangs, first carryeth away the nether
part, and anon fetclieth the other, when shee hath bitten of the wings (for easier
carriage) not far from the place where shee tooke it up. Within a moonth after
hir cooming abroad, shee waxeth bolde, and adventureth into the hives for hoonni :
but, by reason of the strangenes of hir voice and habit, shee is descryed before
shee coom neere. And at the first, while the wether is warm, and the beees bothe
early and late keepe watch and ward at the hive doore, cooming single against
many, shee is commonly repulsed and sent bak agin with a flea in hir ear : and if
by chance shee slip in, shee dooeth not always escape. Soomtime shee is killed in
the hive, and browght foorthe ded : soomtime without the doore, when shee hath
got hir prey. But afterwards the wether waxing colde, (and specially in mornings
and eevnings) and the beees therefore retiring from the doore higher into the hive ;
the wasps make great spoyl : specially among them that ar weak. And this they
continue until Scorpio : after which time they begin to wear. Nevertheles, while
they liv, that is, until Sagittarius (if abundance of colde and wet rid them not a
little rather) they will bee filching, and one wasp wil carry out as much as two
beees bring in," — Butler's Feminine Monarchie, or the Histori of Bees, 1634.
^ My bosom, as a bed, shall lodge thee.
Here was thy father's bed, here in my breast. — V. A.
And thus I search it with a sovereign kiss.
It may be just worth notice that search is here used in the surgical sense, to
probe a wound. " To search wounds, specillo tentare vnlnus.'" — Coles.
Yet here they shall not lie, for catching cold.
That is, lest they should catch cold. So in the fifty-second sonnet, /or blunting,
i. e. for fear of blunting. " So, in an ancient ' Dialogue both pleasaunte and pro-
fitable,' by Willyam Bulleyn, 1564 : ' My horse starteth, and had like to have
unsaddled me ; let me sit iaster, for falling.' Again, in Plutarch's Life of Antony,
translated by Sir Thomas North : ' So he was let in, and brought to her muffled as
he was, for being known,' i. e. for fear of being known. Again, in Pecle's King
54
NOTES TO THE FIRST ACT.
Edward I., 1593: 'Hold up your torches for dripping.' Again, in Love's Pil-
grimage, ' Stir my horse, /o/- catcliing cold.' Again, in Barnabie Riche's ' Soldier's
AVishe to Britons Welfare, or Captaine Skill and Captainc Pill,' IGOl, p. 64 :
' Such other ill-disposed persons, being once press'd, must be kept with continual
guard, &:c., /();' running away.'" — Steevcns. The expression itself also occurs in
Lilly's Euphucs, 1581, " if he were too long for the bed, Procrustes cut off his
legs for catching cold."
I see yon liate a montlis mind to them.
That is, a strong inclination for them. This phrase, which was proverbial, and
is still in provincial use, does not appear to have the slightest connexion with the
ancient monthly remembrances of the dead, which were so called ; although Peck
attempts the following unsatisfactory explanation — "By saying they have a
month's mind to it, they anciently must undoubtedly mean that, if they had what
they so much longed for, it would (hyperbolically speaking) do them as much
good (they thought) as they believed a month's mind, or service said once a month
(could they afford to have it), would benefit their souls after their decease."
These verses Eupliues sent also under his glasse, which having finished, he gave
himselfe to his booke, determining to end his life in Athens, although he had a
moneths minde to England : who at all times, and in all companies, was no niggard
of his good speech to that nation, as one willing to live in that Court, and wedded
to the manners of that country. — Lilly s Eiiphues and his England, 1623.
Tyn. Steel'd impudence !
Wliat fruit can I expect the bough should bear
That grows from such a stock ? Dip. I had of late
A moneths mind, sir to you ; Y' ave the right make
To please a lady. — Randolph's Jealous Lovers, 1646.
Hark you, couzens mine ; if in this Persian war you chance to take a handsome
she captive, pray you be not unmindfuU of us your friends at home ; I will disburse
her ransome, couzens, for I've a months mind to try if strange flesh, or that of our
own countrey, has the compleater relish. — Chapman's Revenge for Honour, 1654.
Eor look ye, suppose a man shu'd have a minde unto her.
Pol. A minde, what minde ?
Pam. Why, a moneths minde or so.
Pol. Why then, after a moneth you may be rid oft.
Pam. I hope, sir, you do not mock me ?
Flechioes Love's Kingdom, 12mo. 1664.
Eor by his troth he swore, and all the troths he could swear by, that for this
whole year he had had a months mind to me, and do what I could I could not be
rid of him, before I did teU him that I could love him, and so indeed I could if I
had known him, for he was a handsome fellow: but being a stranger, he should
pardon me for the main chance. — NeiD Art of Enditing Epistles, n. d.
In short, Pedro, you have a month's mind to measure lengths with Madam
Mariana, and you, Antonio, have as much to a day to try how things will fit with
brisk Ismena. Come, confess, confess ; I see plainly by your solemn pace and
grave contriving looks, you have been running over all the stories in romances to
accomplish your designs. — The Reformation, 4to. 1673.
Eor when maids (to gratify their avaricious parents) are forc'd to marry,
where they would not, it makes them have a month's mind to another j^lace.
But a good breakfast to a hungry man is better than a kiss of the fairest lady in
the whole universe. — Poor Rohin, 1741.
NOTES TO THE EIEST ACT.
55
PuntJiino.
" In the enumeration of characters in the old copy, this attendant on Antonio
is called FantJiion, but in the play always Fanthiuo.'" — Steevens.
*^ What sad talk was that.
Sad, grave, serious. " So sad and so demure," Phyllyp Sparowe. " The
king feigneth to talk sadhj with some of his counsel," Promos and Cassandra,
1578. " Marry, sir Knight, I saw them in sad talke, but to say they were
directly whispering I am not able." — Wise Woman of Ilogsdon, 1638.
He set hym up, and sawe their biside
A sad man, in whom is no pride.
Right a discrete confessour, as 1 trow.
His name was called Sir John Doclow. — MS. Batol. C. 86.
Of slender reputation.
That is, as Steevens observes, who are thought slightly of, are of little con-
eequence.
Some, to discover islands far away.
To discover, not necessarily to make what we now should call a discovery, but
merely to voyage to for the sake of obtaining information. Every voyage was
termed a discovery. Thus Taylor, the Water-Poet, gives an account of a "Dis-
covery by sea from London to Salisbury," and Jourdain's pamphlet on the
Bermudas is also called a discovery. Hariot is mentioned by Grenvile, 1590, as
being "servant to Sir Walter Ealeigh, a member of the colony, and there employed
in discovering."
The following observations by Malone, who fancied that these lines were evi-
dences in the question of the chronology of the play, may be worth adding : —
" Shakspeare, as has been often observed, gives to almost every country the
manners of his own : and though the speaker is here a Veronese, the poet, when
he wrote the last two lines, was thinking of England ; where voyages for the pur-
pose of discovering islands far aicay were at this time much prosecuted. In 1595,
Sir Walter Raleigh undertook a voyage to the island of Trinidado, from which he
made an expedition up the river Oronoque, to discover Guiana. Sir Humphry
Gilbert had gone on a similar voyage of discovery the preceding year. The par-
ticular situation of England in 1595 I had supposed might have suggested the line
above quoted. In that year it was generally believed that the Spaniards meditated
a second invasion of England, with a much more powerful and better appointed
Armada than that which had been defeated in 1588. Soldiers were levied with
great diligence, and placed on the sea-coasts, and two great fleets were equipped ;
one to encounter the enemy in the British seas ; the other to sail to the West
Indies, under the command of Hawkins and Drake, to attack the Spaniards in
their own territories. About the same time also Elizabeth sent a considerable
body of troops to the assistance of King Henry IV. of Erance, who had entered
into an offensive and defensive alliance with the English Queen, and had newly
declared war against Spain. Our author, therefore, we see, had abundant reason
for both the lines before us."
Which would he great impeachment to his age.
Impeachment, a subject for reproach or accusation. The word here seems
used in rather an unusual sense, as from the Latin impeto.
Attends the emperor in his royal court.
" Shakespeare has been guilty of no mistake in placing the emperor's court at
56
NOTES TO THE EIUST ACT.
Milan in tliis play. Several of the first German emperors lield their courts there
occasionally, it hcing, at that time, their immediate property, and the chief town
of their Italian dominions. Some of them were crowned kings of Italy at Milan,
before they received the imperial crown at Eome. Nor has the poet fallen into
any contradiction, by giving a duke to Milan at the same time that the emperor
held his court there. The lirst dukes of that, and aU the other great cities in Italy,
were not sovereign princes, as they afterwards became : but were merely governors,
or viceroys, under the emjierors, and removeable at their pleasure. Such was
the Duke of Milan mentioned in this play. Mr. Monck Mason adds, that 'during
the M-ars in Italy between Erancis 1. and Charles V. the latter frequently resided
at Milan.' " — Steevens.
In good time.
This phrase, equivalent to a propos, is spoken at the sight of Proteus. " In
good time, opportune^ Baret's Alvearie, 1580. "And in good time here comes the
sweating lovH,''' Richard HI. "In very good time, opportune, optime, peroppor-
tune" Idiomatologia Anglo-Latina, 1670. "In good time, in liora huona,''
Howell.
Now will we hreaJc with him.
Ereak the subject to him. " To breake talke or communication, incidere
sermonem" Baret, ibid. The phrase occurs again in the tirst act of Much Ado
about Nothing.
Muse not that I thus suddenly proceed.
Muse, wonder. So in Macbeth, "Do not muse at me, my most worthy
friends." Huloet, Abcedarium, 1552, Yei&cQ miise, "vide in marvoyle."
And there an end.
The third folio alters this quaint and expressive phraseology to the modern,
"and there's an end."
Lilce exhihition thou shall have from me.
Exhibition, allowance, pension. Compare Othello, act i.; King Lear, act i.
So, in Webster's Devil's Law Case, 1623, "in his riot does far exceed the
exhibition I allowed him." The term is still in use in the Universities. "A
pensioner, or he that liveth upon some annuitie, yearely allowance, or exhibition,"
Nomenclator, 1585. " His braynes, his time, all hys maintenance and exhibition
upon it he hath consumed," Nash's Have with you to Saffron Walden, or
Gabriell Harvey's Hunt is Up, 1596. " Eearing, by your narrow exhibition, you
lov'd me not," Shirley's Brothers, p. 26. "All things requisite and necessary
for their exibicion and findings as my kynneswomen," MS. Accounts. The term
is of constant occurrence in this sense.
Of all the exhibition yet bestow' d,
This woman's liberality likes me hest.~ Ilegwood's Udward IV.
No ; whether you be at primero, or hazard, you shall sit as patiently, though
you lose a whole half-year's exhibition, as a disarmed gentleman does when he is
in the unmerciful fingers of sergeants. — Decker s GulVs Hornbook, 1609.
Hath he excepted most against my love.
An honest man invited a physition to dinner, and at dinner time drunk to him
in a cup of wine : whereunto the physition excepted, and said, that he durst not
pledge him in wine for feare of pimples and inflammations in his face. The other
then answered, a foule yU on that face that makes the whole body fare the worse.
— Copley s Wits, Fits, and Fancies, 1614.
NOTES TO THE FIRST ACT.
57
And hy and hy a cloud takes all away.
In me thou seest the twilight of such day,
As after sun-set fadeth in the west,
Which by and by black night doth take away,
Death's second self, that seals up all in rest. — Sonnets.
"At the end of this verse (0, how, &c.), there is wantuig a syllable, for the
speech apparently ends in a quatrain. I find nothing that wiU rhyme to sun, and
therefore shaU leave it to some happier critic. But I suspect that the author
might write thus :
"Oh, how this spring of love resemble th right,
The uncertain glory of an April day;
Which now shews aU the glory of the light.
And, by and by, a cloud takes all away !
" Light wsis either by negligence or affectation changed to stm, which, considered
without the rhyme, is indeed better. The next transcriber, finding that the word
right did not rhyme to sun, supposed it erroneously written, and left it out." —
Johnson.
I quote this chiefly for the sake of remarking how exceedingly dangerous and
unnecessary it is to interfere with the original text, merely on account of a
deficiency of rhyme, which is, in fact, one of the most striking, and often most
beautiful, peculiarities of the ancient dramatists. The Perkins MS. affords several
examples in this kind of what a prosaic mind wiU venture upon, when uncontrolled
by a deference to authority ; but Dr. Johnson's alterations, given above, are more
favorable specimens of a similar license. Mr. Wheler's annotated copy of the
third folio (earlier than Pope's time) reads —
Oh, how this spring of love resembleth tDell.
8
SCENE I. — Milan. A Room in the Duke's palace.
Enter Valentine and Speed.
Speed. [Picking up a glove.^ Sir, your glove?
Val. Not mine; my gloves are on.
Speed. Why, then this may be yours, for this is but one.^
Val. Ha! let me see : ay, give it me, it's mine:
Sweet ornament, that decks a thing divine!
Ah Silvia! Silvia!
Speed. [Calls.'] Madam Silvia! madam Silvia!
Val. How now, sirrah?
Speed. She is not within hearing, sir.
Val. Why, sir, who bade you call her?
Speed. Your worship, sir; or else I mistook.
Val. Well, you'll still be too forward.
Speed. And yet I was last chidden for being too slow.
Val. Go to, sir; tell me, do you know madam Silvia?
Speed. She that your worship loves?
Val. Why, how know you that I am in love?
Speed. Marry, by these special marks : First, you have
learn'd, like sir Proteus, to wreath your arms like a malcontent;
to relish a love-song, like a robin-redbreast; to walk alone, like
one that had the pestilence; to sigh, like a schoolboy that had
lost his A.B.C.;' to weep, like a young wench that had buried
her grandam; to fast, like one that takes diet;^ to watch, like
one that fears robbing; to speak puling, like a beggar at
Hallowmas.* You were wont, when you laughed, to crow like a
60
THE TWO GENTLEMEN OE VERONA, [act ii. sc. i.
cook; when you walk'd, to walk hke one of the hons;^ when
you fasted, it was presently after dinner; when you look'd sadly,
it \\as for want of money: and now you are metamorphos'd'^
with a mistress, that, when I look on you, I can hardly think
you mv master.
J'al. Are all these things perceiv'd in me?
Speed. They are all perceiv'd without ye.
J Id. Without me they cannot.
Speed. Without you? nay, that 's certain, for without you
were so simple, none else would :^ but you are so without these
follies, that these follies are within you, and shine through you
like the water in an urinal,*' that not an eye that sees you but is
a physician to comment on your malady.
Vol. But tell me dost thou know my lady Silvia?
Speed. She that you gaze on so, as she sits at supper?
Fed. Hast thou observed that? even she I mean.
Speed. Why, sir, I know her not.
Tal. Dost thou know her by my gazing on her, and yet
know'st her not?
Speed. Is she not hard-favour'd, sir?
Val. Not so fair, boy, as well favour'd.
Speed. Sir, I know that well enough.
J^al. What dost thou know?
Speed. That she is not so fair, as (of you) well favour'd.
Val. I mean, that her beauty is exquisite, but her favour
infinite.
Speed. That 's because the one is painted, and the other out
of all count.
V al. How painted ? and how out of count?
Speed. Marry, sir, so painted, to make her fair, that no man
counts of her beauty.
V d. How esteem'st thou me? I account of her beauty.^
Speed. You never saw her since she was deform'd.
V il. How long hath she been deform'd?
Speed. Ever since you lov'd her.
V d. I have lov'd her ever since I saw her; and still I see
her beautiful.
Speed. If you love her, you cannot see her.
Val. Wliy?
Speed. Because Love is blind. O, that you had mine eyes;
or your o\\n eyes had the lights they were wont to have, w hen
you chid at sir Proteus for going ungarter'd!
ACTn. sc. I.] THE TWO GENTLEMEN OE YEEONA.
61
Val. What should I see then?
Speed. Your own present folly, and her passing deformity:
for he, being in love, could not see to garter his hose;^° and you,
being in love, cannot see to put on your hose.
Val. Belike, boy, then you are in love; for last morning you
could not see to wipe my shoes.
Speed. True, sir; I was in love with my bed: I thank you,
you swing'd me for my love, which makes me the bolder to
chide you for yours.
Val. In conclusion, I stand affected to her.
Speed. I would you were set;" so your affection would cease.
Val. Last night she enjoin'd me to write some lines to one
she loves.
Speed. And have you?
Val. I have.
Speed. Are they not lamely writ?
Val. No, boy, but as well as I can do them; —
Peace! here she comes.
Enter Silvia.
Speed. O excellent motion O exceeding puppet! Now will
he interpret to her.
Val. Madam and mistress, a thousand good-morrows.^^
Speed. O, 'give ye good ev'n! here's a million of manners. [Aside.
Sil. Sir Valentine and servant,^* to you two thousand.
Speed. He should give her interest, and she gives it him.
Val. As you enjoin'd me, I have writ your letter
Unto the secret nameless friend of yours;
Wliich I was much unwilHng to proceed in,
But for my duty to your ladyship.
Sil. I thank you, gentle servant: 't is very clerkly done.^^
Val. Now trust me, madam, it came hardly off;^*^
For, being ignorant to whom it goes,
I writ at random, very doubtfully.
Sil. Perchance you think too much of so much pains?
Val. No, madam; so it stead you, I will write.
Please you command, a thousand times as much:
And yet, —
Sil. A pretty period! Well, I guess the sequel;
And yet I will not name it; — and yet I care not; —
And yet take this again; — and yet 1 thanlc you;
Meaning henceforth to trouble you no more.
62
THE TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA, [act ii. sc. i.
Speed. And yet you will; and yet another yet. [Aside.
Val. What means your ladyship; do you not like it?
Sil. Yes, yes ; the lines are very quaintly writ.
But since unwillingly, take them again;
Nay, take them.
Val. IMadam, they are for you.
S'd. Ay, ay, you writ them, sir, at my request;
But I will none of them; they are for you:
I would have had them writ more movingly.
Val. Please you, I '11 write your ladyship another.
SU. And when it 's writ, for my sake read it over:
And if it please you, so: if not, why, so.
Val. If it please me, madam! what then?
Sil. Wliy, if it please you, take it for your labour :
And so, good morrow, servant. [Exit Silvia.
Speed. O jest unseen, inscrutable, invisible.
As a nose on a man's face,^^ or a weathercock on a steeple
My master sues to her, and she hath taught her suitor.
He being her pupil, to become her tutor.
O excellent device ! was there ever heard a better.
That my master, being scribe, to himself should write the
letter?
Val. How now, sir? what, are you reasoning with yourself?
Speed. Nay, I was rhyming; 't is you that have the reason.^^
Val. To do what?
Speed. To be a spokesman from madam Silvia.
Val. To whom?
Speed. To yourself : why, she woos you by a figure.
V il. What figure?
Speed. By a letter, I should say.
V il. Wliy, she hath not writ to me?
Speed. Wliat need she, when she hath made you write to
yourself? Why do you not perceive the jest?
Val. No, believe me.
Speed. No believing you, indeed, sir: but did you perceive
her earnest?
V ul. She gave me none, except an angry word.^^
Speed. Why, she hath given you a letter.
V d. That 's the letter I writ to her friend.
Speed. And that letter hath she deliver 'd, and there an end.^^
V d. I would it were no worse.
Speed. I '11 warrant you 't is as well:
ACT II. SC. II.] THE TWO GENTLEMEN OE VERONA. 63
For often liave you writ to her; and she, in modesty,
Or else for want of idle time, could not again reply;
Or fearing else some messenger, that might her mind discover,
Herself hath taught her love himself to write unto her lover. —
All this I speak in print/^ for in print I found it. —
Why muse you, sir? 'tis dinner-time.
F^al. I have din'd.
Speed. Aj, but hearken, sir; though the cameleon Love can
feed on the air,^* I am one that am nourish'd by my victuals,"
and would fain have meat. O, be not like your mistress ; be
moved, be moved.^*^ [Ecceunt.
SCENE II. — ^Verona. A room in Julia's House.
Enter Proteus and Julia.
Pro. Have patience, gentle Julia.
Jul. I must, where is no remedy.
Pro. Wlien possibly I can, I will return.
Jul. If you turn not,^^ you will return the sooner :
Keep this remembrance for thy Julia's sake. [^Giving a ring.
Pro. Why, then we 'U make exchange here, take you this.
[Giving her another.
Jul. And seal the bargain with a holy kiss.^''
Pro. Here is my hand for my true constancy;
And when that hour o'erslips me in the day.
Wherein I sigh not ' JuHa' for thy sake.
The next ensuing hour some foul mischance
Torment me for my love's forgetfulness !
My father stays my coming ; answer not :
Tlie tide is now; nay, not thy tide of tears;
That tide will stay me longer than I should: [Exit Julia.
Juha, farewell! — What! gone without a word?
Ay, so true love should do: it cannot speak;
For truth hath better deeds than words to grace it.
Enter Panthino.
Pan. Sir Proteus, you are stay'd for.
Pro. Go; I come, I come:-
Alas! this parting strikes poor lovers dumb.
[Exeunt.
64
THE TWO GENTLEMEN OE VEEONA. [act ii. sc. m.
SCENE III.— The same. A street.
Enter Launce, leading a dog.
Lann. Nay, 't will be this hour ere I have done weeping ; all
the kind of the Launccs have this very fault. I have receiv'd
my proportion, hke the Prodigious Son, and am going with sir
Proteus to the imperial's court. I think Crab, my dog, be the
sourest-natured dog that lives: my mother weeping, my father
wailing, my sister crying, our maid howling, our cat wringing
her hands, and all our house in a great perplexity, yet did not
this cruel-hearted cur shed one tear: he is a stone, a very
pebble-stone, and has no more pity in him than a dog ! A Jew
would have wept to have seen our parting; why, my grandam,
having no eyes, look you, wept herself blind at my parting.
Nay, I '11 show you the manner of it : This shoe is my father;
— no, this left shoe is my father ;^° no, no, this left shoe is my
mother; — nay, that cannot be so neither: — ^yes, it is so, it is so;
it hath the worser sole. This shoe, with the hole in it, is my
mother, and this my father ; A vengeance on 't ! there 't is : now,
sir, this staff is my sister ; for, look you, she is as white as a
Hly,^^ and as small as a wand: this hat is Nan, our maid; I am
the dog :^" — no, the dog is himself, and I am the dog, — O ! the
dog is me, and I am myself ; ay, so, so. Now come I to my
father ; ' Father, your blessing ;' now should not the shoe speak
a word for weeping; now should I kiss my father; well, he
weeps on. Now come I to my mother, (O, that she could speak
now like an old woman — well, I kiss her ; — why, there 't is ;
here 's my mother's breath up and dovm. Now come I to my
sister ; mark the moan she makes : now the dog all this while
sheds not a tear, nor speaks a word ; but see how I lay the dust
with my tears.
Enter Panthino.
Pan. Launce, away, away, aboard I Thy master is shipp'd, and
thou art to post after with oars. What 's the matter? why
weep'st thou, man? Away, ass; you '11 lose the tide, if you
tany any longer.
Laun. It is no matter if the ty'd were lost;^* for it is the
unkindest ty'd that ever any man ty'd.
Pan. Wliat 's the unkindest tide ;
Laun. Why, he that 's ty'd here ; Crab, my dog.
ACT II. SC. IV.] THE TWO GENTLEMEN OE VEEONA.
G5
Pan. Tut, man, I mean thou'lt lose the flood ; and, in losing
the flood, lose thy voyage ; and, in losing thy voyage, lose thy
master ; and, in losing thy master, lose thy service ; and, in
losing thy service, — ^Why dost thou stop my mouth ?
Laun. For fear thou should'st lose thy tongue.
Pan, Where should I lose my tongue?
Laun. In thy tale.
Pan. In thy tail?
Laun. Lose the tide,^^ and the voyage, and the master, and
the service, and the tide! — Why, man, if the river were dry, I
am able to fill it with my tears ; if the wind were down, I could
drive the boat with my sighs.
Pan. Come, come away, man; I was sent to call thee.
Laun. Sir, call me what thou dar'st.
Pan. Wilt thou go?
Laun. Well, I will go. [Exeunt.
SCENE IV.— Milan. A Room in the Duke's Palace.
Enter Valentine, Silvia, Thurio, and Speed.
Sil. Servant.
Val. Mistress.
Speed. Master, sir Thurio frowns on you.
Val. Ay, boy, it 's for love.
Speed. Not of you.
Val. Of my mistress, then.
Speed. 'Twere good you knock'd him.
Sil. Servant, you are sad.
Val. Indeed, madam, I seem so.
Thu. Seem you that you are not?
Val. Haply I do.
Thu. So do counterfeits.
Val. So do you.
Thu. What seem I that I am not?
Val. Wise.
Thu. What instance of the contrary?
Val. Your folly.
Thu. And how quote''^ you my folly?
Val. I quote it in your jerkin.
Thu. My jerkin is a doublet.
Val. Well, then, I '11 double your folly.
n. 9
66
THE TWO GENTLEMEN OE YEEONA. [act ii. sc. iv.
T/m. How?
Sil. AYliat, aiigTy, sir Tluirio? do you change colour?
VaJ. Give nie leave,'* madam; lie is a kind of eameleon.
Tint. That hath more mind to feed on your hlood, than live
in vour air.
J (fl. You have said, sir.
Thu. Ay, sir, and done too, for this time.
T^al. I know it well, sir; you always end ere you hegin.
Sil. A fine volley of words, gentlemen, and quickly shot off.
FaL 'T is indeed, madam; we thank the giver.
Sil. Who is that, servant?
Val. Yoiu'self, sweet lady; for you gave the fire. Sir Thurio
borrows his wit from your ladyship's looks, and spends what he
borrows kindly in your company.
Thu. Sir, if you spend word for word with me, I shall make
your wit bankrupt.
Val. I know it well, sir: you have an exchequer of words, and,
I think, no other treasure to give your followers; for it appears,
by their bare liveries, that they live by your bare w ords.
Sil. No more, gentlemen, no more; here comes my father.
Enter the Duke.
Buhe. Now, daughter Silvia, you are hard beset.
Sir Valentine, your father is in good health:
What say you to a letter from your friends
Of much good news?
Val. My lord, I will be thankful
To any happy messenger from thence.
Duhe. Know ye, Don Antonio,^^ your countryman?
Val. Ay, my good lord; I know the gentleman
To be of worth, and worthy estimation,*"
And not without desert so well reputed.
Duke. Hath he not a son?
Val. Ay, my good lord; a son that well deserves
The honour and regard of such a father.
Duke. You know him well ?
Val. I knew him, as myself; for from our infancy
We have convers'd and spent our hours together:
And though myself have been an idle truant.
Omitting the sweet benefit of time
To clothe mine age with angel-like perfection.
Yet hath sir Proteus, for that 's his name.
ACT 11. SC. IV.] THE TWO GENTLEMEN OE VEEONA. 07
Made use and fair advantage of his days ;
His years but young, but his experience old;*^
His head unmellowed, but his judgment ripe ;
And, in a word, (for far behind his worth
Come all the praises that I now bestow,)
He is complete in feature,*^ and in mind,
With all good grace to grace a gentleman.
Duke. Beshrew me, sir, but if he make this good.
He is as worthy for an empress' love.
As meet to be an emperor's counsellor.
Well, sir; this gentleman is come to me.
With commendation from great potentates;
And here he means to spend his time awhile :
I think 't is no unwelcome news to you.
Val. Should I have wish'd a thing, it had been he.
Duhe. Welcome him, then, according to his worth ;
Silvia, I speak to you: and you, sir Thurio: —
For Valentine, I need not cite him to it:*^
I will send him hither to you presently. [Exit Duke.
Val. This is the gentleman I told your ladyship
Had come along with me, but that his mistress
Did hold his eyes lock'd in her crystal looks.
8il. Belike, that now she hath enfranchis'd them,
Upon some other pawn for fealty.*^
Val. Nay, sure, I think she holds them prisoners still.
Sil. Nay, then, he should be blind ; and, being blind.
How could he see his way to seek out you?
Val. Why, lady. Love hath twenty pair of eyes.
Thu. They say that Love hath not an eye at all —
Val. To see such lovers, Thurio, as yourself;
Upon a homely object Love can wink.
Enter Proteus.
Sil. Have done, have done; here comes the gentleman.
[Exeunt Thurio and Speed.
Val. Welcome, dear Proteus ! — Mistress, I beseech you
Confirm his welcome with some special favour.
Sil. His worth is warrant for his welcome hither,
If this be he you oft have wish'd to hear from.
Val. Mistress, it is: sweet lady, entertain him
To be my fellow- servant to your ladyship.
Sil. Too low a mistress for so high a servant!
68
THE TWO GENTLEMEN OE VERONA, [act ii. sc. iv.
Pro. Not so, sweet lady; but too mean a servant
To have a look of such a worthy mistress.
Tal. Leave off discourse of disability: —
Sweet lady, entertain him for your servant.
Pro. My duty will I boast of, nothing else.
Sil. And duty never yet did want his meed;
Servant, you are welcome to a worthless mistress.
Pro. I '11 die on him that says so, but yourself.*^
SU. That you are welcome?
Pro. That you are worthless. *°
Re-enter Thurio.
Thu. Madam, my lord*^ your father would speak with you.
Sil. I wait upon his pleasure. Come, Sir Thurio,
Go with me: — once more, new servant, welcome:
I '11 leave you to confer of home-affairs ;
When you have done, we look to hear from you.
Pro. \Ye '11 both attend upon your ladyship.
[Exeunt Silvia and Thurio.
Now, tell me, how do all from whence you came?
Pro. Your friends are well, and have them much commended.
Val. And how do yours?
Pro. I left them all in health.
Val. How does your lady? and how thrives your love?
Pro. ^ly tales of love were wont to weary you;
I know you joy not in a love-discourse.
F^al. Ay, Proteus, but that life is alter 'd now:
I have done penance for contemning Love,
Whose high imperious thoughts^^ have punish'd me
With bitter fasts, with penitential groans,
With nightly tears, and daily heart-sore sighs;
For, in revenge of my contempt of love.
Love hath chas'd sleep from my enthralled eyes.
And made them watchers of mine own heart's sorrow.
O, gentle Proteus, Love's a mighty lord;
And hath so humbled me, as, I confess,
There is no w oe*^ to his correction.
Nor to his service no such joy on earth!
Now, no discourse, except it be of love;
Now can I break my fast, dine, sup, and sleep,
Upon the very naked name of Love.
ACT II. SC. iv.j THE TWO GENTLEMEN OE VEEONA.
Pro. Enough; I read your fortune in your eye;
Was this the idol that you worship so?
Val. Even she ; and is she not a heavenly saint?
Pro. No; but she is an earthly paragon.^"
Val. Call her divine.
Pro. I will not flatter her.
Val. O, flatter me, for love delights in praises.
Pro. When I was sick, you gave me bitter pills;
And I must minister the like to you.
Val. Then speak the truth by her; if not divine.
Yet let her be a principality,"^
Sovereign to all the creatures on the earth.
Pro. Except my mistress.
Val. Sweet, except not any;
Exce^it thou wilt except against my love.
Pro. Have I not reason to prefer mine own?
Val. And I will help thee to prefer her, too:
She shall be dignified with this high honour, —
To bear my lady's train, lest the base earth
Should from her vesture chance to steal a kiss,^^
And, of so great a favour growing proud.
Disdain to root the summer-swelling flower,
And make rough winter everlastingly.
Pro. Why, Valentine, what braggardism is this?
Val. Pardon me, Proteus: all I can is nothing
To her, whose worth makes other worthies nothing;
She is alone I''
Pro. Then let her alone.
Val. Not for the world: why, man, she is mine own;
And I as rich in having such a jewel.
As twenty seas, if all their sand were pearl.
The water nectar, and the rocks pure gold.
Forgive me, that I do not dream on thee.
Because thou seest me dote upon my love.
My foolish rival, that her father likes,
Only for his possessions are so huge.
Is gone with her along; and I must after,
For love, thou know'st, is full of jealousy.^^
Pro. But she loves you?
VaL Ay, and we are betroth'd: Nay, more, our marriage ho
With all the cunning manner of our flight,
Determin'd of: how I must climb her window;
70
THE TWO GENTLEMEN OF YERONA. [act ii. sc. v.
The ladder made of cords; and all the means
Plotted, and 'greed on, for niy happiness,
(lood Protens, go with me to my chamber,
In these affairs to aid me with thy connscl.
Pi'o. Go on before; I shall inqnire you forth:
I must unto the road, to disembark
Some necessaries that I needs must use;
And then I '11 presently attend you.
Vol. AYill you make haste?
Pro. I will. — [Exit Valentine.
Even as one heat another heat expels,^''
Or as one nail by strength drives out another,
So the remembrance of my former love
Is by a newer object quite forgotten.
Is it her mien, or Valentino's praise,^'^
Her true perfection, or my false transgression,
That makes me, reasonless, to reason thus?
She is fair; and so is Julia, that I love —
That I did love, for now my love is thaw'd;
Which, like a waxen image 'gainst a fire,'^^
Bears no impression of the thing it was.
INIethinks, my zeal to Valentine is cold,
And that I love him not as I was wont:
O! but I love his lady too-too much,"*^
And that's the reason I love him so little.
How shall I dote on her with more advice/°
That thus without advice begin to love her!
'T is but her picture''^ I have yet beheld.
And that hath dazzled my reason's light ;''^
But w hen I look on her perfections,
There is no reason but I shall be blind.
If I can check my erring love, I will;
If not, to compass her I '11 use my skill. [Exit.
SCENE V. A street in Milan.
Enter Speed and Launce.
Speed. Launce! by mine honesty, welcome to Milan.
Lairn. Forswear not thyself, sweet youth; for I am not
welcome. I reckon this, always — that a man is never undone.
ACT II. SC. v.] THE T WO GENTLEMEN OE VERONA.
71
till he be hang'd; nor never welcome to a place, till some certain
shot be paid, and the hostess say, 'Welcome.'
Speed. Come on, you mad-cap, I'll to the alehouse with you
presently; where, for one shot of five-pence, thou shalt have
five thousand welcomes. But, sirrah, how did thy master part
with madam Julia?
Laun. Marry, after they clos'd in earnest, they parted very
fairly in jest.
Speed. But shall she marry him?
Laun. No.
Speed. How then? Shall he marry her?
Laun. No, neither.
Speed. What, are they broken?
Laun. No, they are both as whole as a fish.*^^
Speed. Why, then, how stands the matter with them?
Laun. Marry, thus; when it stands well with him, it stands
well with her.
Speed. What an ass art thou! I understand thee not.
Laun. What a block art thou, that thou canst not! My staff
understands me.
Speed. What thou say'st?
Laun. Ay, and what I do, too: look thee, I'll but lean, and
my staff understands me.''^
Speed. It stands under thee, indeed.
Laun. Why, stand-under and under-stand is all one.
Speed. But tell me true, will 't be a match?
Laun. Ask my dog: if he say ay, it will; if he say no, it wiU;
if he shake his tail, and say nothing, it will.
Speed. The conclusion is then, that it will.
Laun. Thou shalt never get such a secret from me, but by a
parable.
Speed. 'T is well that I get it so. But, Launce, how say'st
thou,"' that my master is become a notable lover?
Laun. I never knew him otherwise.
Speed. Than how.^
Laun. A notable lubber, as thou reportest him to be.
Speed. Why, thou whoreson ass! thou mistak'st me.
Laun. Why, fool, I meant not thee, I meant thy master.
Speed. I tell thee my master is become a hot lover.
Laun. Why, I tell thee, I care not though he burn himself in
love. If thou wilt go with me to the ale-house, so:'''' if not,
thou art a Hebrew, a Jew, and not worth the name of a Christian.
72
THE TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA, [act ri. sc. vi.
Speed. Why.
Laun. Because thou hast not so much charity in thee as to
go to the ale''^ with a Christian: Wilt thou go?
Speed. At thy service. [Fjeunt.
SCENE VI. — Milan. A Room in the Palace.
Enter Proteus.
Pro. To leave my Julia, shall I be forsworn ;
To love fair Silvia, shall I be forsworn;
To wrong my friend, I shall be much forsworn;
And ev'n that pow'r which gave me first my oath,
Provokes me to this threefold perjury.
Love bade me swear, and Love bids me forswear:
0 sweet suggesting"^ Love! if thou hast sinn'd,
Teach me, thy tempted subject, to excuse it.
At first I did adore a twinkling star,
But now I worship a celestial sun.
Unheedful vows may heedfully be broken;
And he wants wit that wants resolved will
To learn his wit"*^ t' exchange the bad for better. —
Fie, fie, unreverend tongue! to call her bad,
Whose sovereignty so oft thou hast preferr'd
With twenty thousand soul-confirming oaths.
1 cannot leave to love, and yet I do ;
But there I leave to love, where I should love.
Julia I lose, and Valentine I lose:
If I keep them, I needs must lose myself;
If I lose them, thus find I by their loss,
For Valentine, myself; for Julia, Silvia.
I to myself am dearer than a friend.
For love is still most precious in itself :^°
And Silvia, (witness Heaven, that made her fair!)
Shows Julia but a swarthy Ethiope.
I will forget that Julia is alive,
Rememb'ring that my love to her is dead;
And Valentine I '11 hold an enemy,
Aiming at Silvia as a sweeter friend.
I cannot now prove constant to myself.
Without some treachery us'd to Valentine: —
This night, he meaneth with a corded ladder
ACT II. SC. VII.] THE TWO GENTLEMEN OE VEEONA.
73
To climb celestial Silvia's chamber-window,
Myself in counsel, his competitor
Now presently I '11 give her father notice
Of their disguising, and pretended flight
Wlio, all enrag'd, will banish Valentine,
For Thurio, he intends, shall wed his daughter:
But, Valentine being gone, I '11 quickly cross.
By some sly trick, blunt Thurio's dull proceeding.
Love, lend me wings to make my purpose swift.
As thou hast lent me wit to plot this drift \_Ex'd.
SCENE VII. — Verona. A Room in Julia's Home.
Enter Julia and Lucetta.
Jul. Counsel, Lucetta! gentle girl, assist me!
And, ev'n in kind love, I do conjure thee,^*
Who art the table^^ wherein all my thoughts
Are visibly character'd and engrav'd, —
To lesson me; and tell me some good mean.
How, with my honour, I may undertake
A journey to my loving Proteus.
Luc. Alas! the way is wearisome and long.
Jul. A true-devoted pilgrim is not weary
To measure kingdoms with his feeble steps;
Much less shall she that hath love's wings to fly;
And when the flight is made to one so dear.
Of such divine perfection, as sir Proteus.
Luc. Better forbear, till Proteus make return.
Jul. O, know'st thou not, his looks are my soul's food ?
Pity the dearth that I have pined in,
By longing for that food so long a time.
Didst thou but know the inly touch of love,^**
Thou would'st as soon go kindle fire with snow,
As seek to quench the fire of love w ith words.
Luc. I do not seek to quench your love's hot fire,
But qualify the fire's extreme rage.
Lest it should burn above the bounds of reason.
Jul. The more thou damm'st it up, the more it burns;
The current that with gentle murmur glides.
Thou know'st, being stopp'd, impatiently doth rage ;
But, when his fair course is not hindered,
II. 10
74)
THE TWO GENTLEMEN OE VEEONA. [act ii. sc. vii.
He makes sweet music with th'enamell'd stones.
Giving a gentle kiss to every sedge"
He overtaketli in his pilgrimage ;
And so hy many winding nooks he strays,
With willing sport, to the wild ocean.
Tlien let me go, and hinder not my course :
I '11 he as patient as a gentle stream,
And make a pastime of each weary step,
Till the last step have hrouglit me to my love ;
And there I '11 rest, as, after much turmoil,
A blessed soul doth in Elysium.
Luc. But in what habit will you go along?
Jill. Not like a woman, for I would prevent
The loose encounters of lascivious men :
Gentle Lucetta, fit me with such weeds
As may beseem some well-reputed page.
Luc. Why, then your ladyship must cut your hair.
Jul. No, girl ; I 'll knit it up in silken strings,^^
With twenty odd-conceited true-love knots
To be fantastic may become a youth
Of greater time than I shall show to be.
Luc. What fashion, madam, shall I make your breeches?
Jul. That fits as well as — ' Tell me, good my lord.
What compass will you wear your farthingale?'^*^
Why, ev'n what fashion thou best lik'st, Lucetta.
Luc. You must needs have them with a cod-piece,*^ madam.
Jul. Out, out, Lucetta!*'' that will be ill-favour'd.
Luc. A round hose,^^ madam, now 's not worth a pin, unless
you have a cod-piece to stick pins on.
Jul. Lucetta, as thou lov'st me, let me have
What thou think' st meet, and is most mannerly.
But tell me, wench, how will the world repute me.
For undertaking so unstaid a journey?
I fear me it will make me scandaliz'd.
Luc. If you think so, then stay at home, and go not.
Jul. Nay, that I will not.
Luc. Then never dream on infamy, but go.
If Proteus like your journey, when you come,
No matter who 's displeas'd when you are gone;
I fear me he will scarce be pleas'd withal.
Jul. That is the least, Lucetta, of my fear:
A thousand oaths, an ocean of his tears.
ACT II. SC. VII.] THE TWO GENTLEMEN OE VERONA.
75
And instances of infinite^* of love.
Warrant me welcome to my Proteus.
Imc. All these are servants to deceitful men.
Jul. Base men, that use them to so base effect !
But truer stars did govern Proteus' birth:
His words are bonds, his oaths are oracles;
His love sincere, his thoughts immaculate;
His tears, pure messengers sent from his heart;
His heart as far from fraud as heaven from earth.
Luc. Pray heav'n he prove so, when you come to him!
Jul. Now, as thou lov'st me, do him not that wrong,
To bear a hard opinion of his truth:
Only deserve my love, by loving him;
And presently go with me to my chamber,
To take a note of what I stand in need of,
To furnish me upon my longing journey.^^
All that is mine I leave at thy dispose,^^
My goods, my lands, my reputation;
Only, in lieu, thereof, despatch me hence:
Come, answer not, but to it presently;
I am impatient of my tarriance. [Exeunt.
Itot^s id tlje Stroller %d.
^ For this is hut one.
To understand Speed's jest, it is necessary to observe that one was constantly
pronounced, and often written, on. Examples of this in early English are almost
innumerable. On urd, one word, Untrussing of the Humorous Poet. "If in a
morning his shoes were put one wrong, and namely the left for the right, he held
it unlucky," Holland's Suetonius, 1606.
You knowe in court up-trained is
A lyon very young;
Of on litter two whelps beside,
As yet not very strong.
Preston^s Life of King Cambises.
^ Lilce a 8cliool-hoy that had lost his ABC.
The large facsimile of a metrical ABC book, dated 1575, here inserted, is
one of the most curious early school relics known to exist, all broadsides of this
kind being of the highest degree of rarity. A stiU earlier A. B. C. is preserved in
a MS. of the fifteenth centmy, here transcribed ; but the ABC mentioned by
Speed would be either a primitive horn-book, a broadside similar to the one given
in facsimile, or a small spelling book : — in short, the very first paper or book given
to a child at the commencement of his education.
" "Who so wyU be wyse and worshyp to vrynne, leern he on lettur and loke
upon another of the A. B. C. of Arystotle. Noon argument agaynst that, fFor it is
counselle for clerkes and kniglites a thowsand ; and also it myght amend a meane
man fuUe oft the lernyng of a lettur, and his lyf save. It shal not greve a good
man, though gylt be amend. Eede on this ragment, and rule the theraftur, and
whoso be grevid yn his goost governe the bettur. Herkyn and here every man
and child how that I begynne :
A. to Amerous, to Aventurous, ne Angre, the not to moche.
B. to Bold, to Besy, and Bourde not to large.
C. to Curtes, to Cruel, and Care not to sore.
D. to Dulle, to Dredefulle, and Drynk not to oft,
E. to Ellynge, to Excellent, ne to Ernstfulle neyther.
E. to Eerse, ne to Eamilier, but Erendely of chere.
G. to Glad, to Gloryous, and Gelowsy thow hate.
H. to Hasty, to Hardy, ne to Hevy yn thyne herte.
J. to Jettyng, to Janglyng, and Jape not to oft.
78
NOTES TO THE SECOND ACT.
K. to Keping, to Kynd, and ware Knaves tatches among.
L. to Lothe, to Lovyng, to Lyberalle of goodes.
M. to Medlus, to Mery, but as Maner asketh.
N. to Noyous, to Nyce, nor yet to Newefangle.
O. to Orpyd, to Ovyrtliwarte, and Otlies thou hate.
P. to Preysyng, to Privy, with Princes ne with dukes.
Q. to Queynt, to Querelous, to Quesytife of questions.
R. to Eyetous, to Kevelyng, ne Bage not to meche.
S. to Straunge, ne to Steryng, nor Stare not to brode.
T. to Taylous, to Talewyse, for Temperaunce ys best.
V. to Yenemous, to Yengeable, and Wast not to myche.
W. to Wyld, to Wrothfulle, and Wade not to depe,
A mesura])blle meane Way is best for us alle.
MS. Harl., 541, from two versions {in this MS.) collated.
In the A. B. C. of bokes the least,
Yt is written Beus charitas est.
Lo ! charytie is a great thing,
Of all virtues it is the kynge :
Whan God in earth was here livinge,
Of charyti he found none endinge.
TJie Interlude of Youth, n. d.
Doe not so by mee, I beseech you, for I am a very bad writer of orthography,
and can scarce spell my abcie if it were laid before mee.
King's Halfe-Pennyworth of Wit, 1613.
By sweating too much backwards ; nay I find
They know the right, and left hand file, and may
With some impulsion no doubt be brought
To passe the A, B, C, of war, and come
Unto the Horne-booke. — Thierry and Theodoret, 1621.
I wish Eeligion timely be
Taught him with his ABC.
I wish him good and constant health,
His father's learning, but more wealth ;
And that to use, not hoard ; a purse
Open to bless, not shut to curse. — CartwrigMs Poems, 1651.
But much more thou wouldst long (in mine opinion)
To see those that have had such large dominion,
(I meane the Kings and great men) salt-fish sell,
Opprest with want, teach igno'rant ghosts to spell,
And learne their ABC: to all disgraces
Subject, their eares boxt, beaten on the faces,
Like slaves and captives.
Heywood's Hierarchie of the Blessed Angels, fol. 1635.
^ LiJce one that taltes diet.
Under the severe regimen formerly required for a disease which need not be
particularly mentioned. See further observations on the subject in the notes to
Timon of Athens.
* To speali puling, liJce a beggar at Hallowmas.
Hallowmas, or Hallows, or All Hallows, Hallontide, or All Saint's Day^
I 'm Sttnih of an' mrfv A B. C, — First Portwri/
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NOTES TO THE SECOND ACT.
79
Nov. 1. That is, says Johnson, about the feast of All Saints, when winter begins,
and the life of a vagrant becomes less comfortable.
" It is worth remarking, that, on AU-Saint's-Day, the poor people in
Staffordshire, and perhaps in
other country places, go from
parish to parish a soiding,
as they call it; i. e. begging
and pulinf/ (or singing small, as
Bailey's Diet. ex]Aams puling)
for soul-cakes, or any good
thing to make them merry?
This custom is mentioned by
Peck, and seems a remnant of
Popish superstition to pray for
departed souls, particularly
those of friends. The soiilers
song in Staffordshire, is diffe-
rent from that which Mr. Peck
mentions, and is by no means
worthy publication." — Toilet.
The custom of going a Souling still continues in some parts of the county, pea-
sant girls visiting farmhouses in groups, singing, —
"Soul, soul, for a soul cake.
Pray, you, good mistress, a soul cake."
And other verses are sung on the same occasion, but which I suspect are not the
ancient ones. It was formerly usual to keep a soulmass-cake for good luck.
Young, in his History of Whitby, says, "a lady in Whitby has a soul-mass loaf
near a hundred years old." The above characteristic engraving of a group of
old English beggars, is copied from a ballad in the Roxburgh e collection.
GROUP OF BEGGARS — ROXBUaGHE BALLADS.
^ To walk like one of the lions.
Eitson thinks there may here be an allusion to the lions kept at the Tower of
London, but the use of the definite article can scarcely be considered in itself
decisive. The Tower lions were amongst the sights of the metropolis for several
centuries, and have, indeed, not been removed many years, for they are included
in my own recollection of London exhibitions. They are thus mentioned in a
ballad of the seventeenth century in MS. Harl. 3910, —
Then through the Bridge to the Towre I went.
With much adoe I wandred in.
And when my penny I had spent,
Thus the spokesman did begin.
This lyon's the King's, and this is the Queene's,
And this is the Prince's that stands by hym.
I drew nere, not knowing which hee means, —
What ayle you, my frend, to go so nigh him?
Do you see the lyon, this that lyes downe?
It's Henry the Great, twoe hondred years olde!
Lord bless us, quoth I, how he doth frown!
I tell you, quoth hee, hee's a lyon boulde!
80
NOTES TO THE SECOND ACT.
" Note you are metamorphos'd with a mistress.
The Perkins ]\IS. reads, " so metamorplios'd," a specious modernization, so being
understood before that. The same alteration was made by Victor, 17G3.
None else would.
That is, unless you were so simple, none else would be able to see them ; they
are seen witliout you, or else no one would percseive them. Dr. Johnson's
explanation appears to me to be erroneous.
^ LiJce the loater in an urinal.
The subjoined engraving, representing the interior of a doctor's shop, the
urinal being held up for examination, is taken from an illuminated copy of the
well-known treatisei)<?^jro-
prietatihiis rerum, in the
British Museum, Bibl.Reg.
15 E. ii, of the fifteenth
century. The judgment
of diseases by this inspec-
tion, which was carried to
an absurd extent, is one of
the most curious subjects
in the history of medicine.
An old black-letter book
on this matter, now before
me, thus commences, —
"In the begynnynge of
this goodly treatyse, thou
must take hede to foure
thynges ; that is to saye,
to the substaunce, to the
coloures, to the regyons,
and to the contentes,
whiche longe to the dome
of uryne : and fyrst loke
to the uryne, whether it be
thy eke or thyn, or els be-
twene bothe ; than shalte
thou se throughetliejoyntes
of thy fyngers, and than it betokeneth a bad stomacke, and water in the bowelles ;
and yf the uryne be betwene thicke and thyn, than it betokeneth swellynge of
the gall. The seconde is that thou shal take hede to the coloures of the uryne, as
sayth the mayster of physycke : and these be the coloures of waters that folowe."
" / account of her beauty.
Account of, esteem, value. " There dwelled sometime in the citie of Eome a
baker, named Astatio, who, for his honest behaviour, was well accounted of amongst
his neighbours," Tarlton's Newes out of Purgatorie, n. d.
^° Sie, heing in love, could not see to garter his hose.
The ungartered hose was one of the characteristics of the lover. An amorist
is thus described in the Overbury Characters, ed, 1626, — "Hee fights with passion,
and loseth much of his bloud by his weapon ; dreames, thence his palenesse : his
armes are carelesly used, as if their best use were nothing but embracements : he
is untrust, unbottoned, and ungartered, not out of carelesnesse, but care ; his
NOTES TO THE SECOND ACT.
81
farthest end being but going to bed." Compare, also, Heywood's Pair Maid of
the Exchange, 1637, — " Shall I, that have jested at love's sighs, now raise
whirlwinds? ShaU I, that have flouted ah-me's once a quarter, now practise
ah-me's every minute? Shall I defy hatbands, and tread garters and shoe-strings
under my feet?" In the comedy of How to Chuse a Good Wife from a Bad,
1602, a lover is called a " goer without garters." These garters, being worn in
sight, were often of great value. The continuator of Stowe asserts that, about
the year 1625, men of mean rank wore " garters and shoe-roses of more than five
pound price ;" and Warner, in his Albion's England, 1602, mentions them as
being made of silk, " some edged deep with gold." At this period garters were worn
outside the hose, immediately beneath the knee ; and were generally in the form
of a full sash, tied in a bow at the outside of the leg, the garter itself being of silk,
and the pendant ends richly decorated with point-lace. In Cornu-copise ; Pasquil's
Night-cap, or Antidot for the Headache, 1612, mention is made of —
a swaggering cavalier,
Which hath his garters bravely fring'd with gold.
Hee never tries his strength to beare foure or five hundred acres on his
backe at once ; his legges are alwayes at liberty, not being fettred witli golden
garters, and manacled with artificial roses, whose weight (sometime) is the reliques
of some decayed lordship. — Taylor's WorJces, fol. 1630.
" The hose of the Elizabethan period," observes Mr. Eairholt, " was generally
drawn over the knee, and secured beneath it by garters of a
costly kind. Taylor, the Water-poet, speaks of " spangled
garters worth a copyhold." They were generally formed like a
narrow scarf of silk tied in a large bow and having laced,
spangled, or fringed ends ; like the example given in the
woodcut, which is copied from one on the title-page of "Woe
to Drunkards," a Sermon preached by Samuel Ward, of
Ipswich, 1627 ; the vices of that age being typically con-
trasted with the virtues of a former one ; the gartered leg
here copied being placed under that of a booted soldier
with the foot in stirrup, to show the degeneracy of masculine
virtue according to the preacher's idea of it."
'■'Ligida cruralis, a hose garter," Nomenclator, 1585.
We never yet had garter to our hose,
Nor any shooe to put upon our feete. — The Knave of Harts, 1613.
Good bounteous house-keeping is quite destroy 'd,
And large revenewes other wayes imployd ;
Meanes that would foure men meate and meanes allow.
Are turnd to garters, and to roses noio ;
That which kept twenty, in the dayes of old.
By Satan is turn'd sattin, silke, and gold,
And one man now in garments he doth weare,
A thousand akers on his backe doth beare,
Whose ancestom's in former times did give
Meanes for a hundred people well to live.
Worhes of Taylor, the Water- Poet, 1630.
Your clothes unbuttoned doe not use.
Let not your hose ungartered bee ;
Have handkerchiefe in readinesse.
Wash hands and face, or see not mee.
Coolers English Schoolemaster, 4to. 1632.
82
NOTES TO THE SECOND ACT.
" I would you icere set.
Set is cvidontly used in opposition to stand, in the preceding line, meaning,
})robably, set down, in the sense jjut down.
0 excellent motion! 0 exceeding puppet!
A motion was a puppet-show. Exceeding puppet, a great puppet. " That
exceeding gyant," Gayton's Notes upon Don Quixot, 1651, p. 33. Speed says
that Valentine will be the interpreter of the puppet-show. The chief part of the
fifth act of Ben Jonson's Bartholomew Fair, relates to a motion, or puppet-show,
which is thus mentioned by Pepys in 1661, — " My wife and I to ' Bartholomew
Fayre' with puppets (which I liad seen once before, and the play without puppets
often) ; but though 1 love the play as much as ever I did, yet I do not like the
puppets at all, but think it to be a lessening to it."
— She'd get more gold
Then aU tlie baboones, calves with two tailes.
Or motions whatsoever. — Ram Alleij, 1611.
B. Where's the durnbe shew you promis'd me? B. Even ready, my lord ;
but may be cal'd a motion; for puppits wil speak but such corrupt language
you'le never understand without an interpreter. — Knave in Graine, 1640.
A single puppet was occasionally
so called : — " The motion says, you lie,
he is called Dionysius." — Jonson's
Bartholomew Eair. ''Beat. A motion,
sister. — Crisp. Ninivie, Julius Ceasar,
Jonas, or the distruction of Jerusalem."
— Marston's Dutch Courtezan, 1605.
The very curious representation of
a medieval motion or puppet-show,
here engraved, is copied from an illu-
mination in the celebrated MS. of the
Romance of Alexander, preserved in the Bodleian library.
A thousand good morrows.
E. But, by your leave, I will goe away, and wiU presently returne to you
againe. — A. With a thousand leaves. — Passenger of Benvenuto, 1612.
Sir Valentine and servant.
Servant was the common designation of a lover in Shakespeare's time, and the
term was also constantly used when merely an admirer was intended, or some-
times one who engaged to attend courteously on another. The corresponding
term, mistress, is still retained. Cowley, in his Cutter of Coleman Street, 1663,
evidently uses the word servant in the sense of a fantastic admirer, — "Here comes
another of her servants ; a young, rich, fantastical fop, that would be a wit, and
has got a new way of being so ; he scorns to speak any thing that's common, and
finds out some impertinent similitude for every thing; the devil, I think, can't
find out one for him. This coxcomb has so little brains too, as to make me the
confident of his amours ; I'le thank him for his confidence ere I ha' done with
him." In Witts Bccreations, 1654, are some verses entitled, "Her supposed
servant subscribed," —
I would have him if 1 could.
Noble; or of greater blood:
Titles, I confess, do take me;
And a woman God did make me ;
NOTES TO THE SECOND ACT.
83
Erencli to boot, at least in fashion,
And his manners of that nation.
"Wherefore do women require, above all things, their servants and lovers to be
secret ? — Delectable Bemaundes and Pleasant Questions, 1596, p. 48.
0 Sir Puntarvolo, you must thinke every man was not borne to have my
servant Briskes feature. — Every Man out of his Humor, 1600.
Emil. Most strange : see, heere's my servant, yong Eerrard : how many
servants thinkest thou I have, Maquarelle ? — Maq. The more the merrier: 'twas well
saide, use your servants as you doe your smockes, have many, use one, and change
often, for that's most sweete and courtlike. — Marstoiis Malcontent, 1604.
Celia. Sweet sister Meletza, lets sit in judgment a little ; faith, of my servant
Mounsier Laverdure. — Mel. Troth, weU for a servant, but for a husband (figh) 1.
—Marstons What You Will, 1607.
Lit. Now, I conceive you, reade them out. — Dot. First, that after Hymen has
once joyned us together, she shaU admit of no man whatsoever, to intitle him with
any suspitious name of friend, or servant: doe you marke me? — Manny on s Fine
Companion, 1633.
To speak the truth, she was a delicate woman, but when I found that she was
not contented with one servant, and began to afPect others as well as myself, 1
made no more esteem of her, but by little and little retired myself from her
conversation, without demanding of her if her law businesse were almost brought
to an end, or not, or if she were ready to return to her own country. — Comical
History of Francion, 1655.
Lady, if you think me not too unworthy to expect a favour from you, I shall
be ambitious as a servant to caU you mistress, till the happyer title of a wife crown
our desires. — Cotgraves Wits Interpreter, 1671, p. 35.
It is Mr. Bennedick, quoth she, which for my love hath left the love of our
kinswoman, and hath vowed himself for ever to be my servant. 0 dissembling
Italian, quoth he, I wiU be revenged on him for this wrong. — The Pleasant
History of Jach of Newbury, n. d.
''Tis very clerMy done.
Clerkly, like a clerk or scholar. "Clearkly reed," i. e., learned counsel,
Sidney's Arcadia. " Thou art clerkly. Sir John," Merry Wives of Windsor.
It came hardly off.
That is, it was executed with difficulty or with ill success. A similar phrase
occurs in Timon of Athens, q. v.
As a nose on a man's face.
A proverbial phrase. "As plain as the nose on a man's face," Bay's English
Proverbs, 1678, p. 287. "As plain as the nose on yan's faas," it is perfectly clear,
Craven Gloss., ii. 13.
Tlie simple soules not perceiving that this their transformation, or rather
deformation, is no more scene than a nose in a mans face. — The Civile Conversation
of M. Stephen Guazzo, by Pettie, 1586.
Those of the sun you cannot behold, because they happen in the night season,
but those of the moon may be seen as perfectly as the nose on a man's face, if the
air be clear, and that you are awake and up at such time as they shaU happen.
Poor Bobin, 1696.
^® Or a weathercoch on a steeple.
The vane in the form of a cock, hence called a weather-cock, was said to be
84
NOTES TO THE SECOND ACT.
emblematic of watchfulness. "In summitate crucis, qu?o companario vulgo
imponitur, galli gallinacei ell'ugi solet ligura, qua) ecclesiarum rectores vigilantiae
aihnoueat,"— Dii Cange, Gloss. The hallowing of the weather-cock, set upon
Louth Steeple, in 1515, is mentioned in Arch. x. The following note on the
subject is by Mr. Eairholt:
"The genuine old weather-cock was not an arrow
pointing to the way the wind blows as an index to the
letters denoting the points of the compass beneath it, but
a representation of a cock, whose spreading tail caught
the wind, and turned his beak to the spot from which
it blew. The annexed engraving represents an old
weather-cock of this kind from one which is placed on the
steeple of the Church at Walton-on-the-Hill, co. Surrey."
Are you reasoning with yourself?
That is, discoursing, talhing. An Italianism. — Jolmson. So, in the
Merchant of Yenice: — "I reasoned with a Erenchman yesterday." — Steevens.
is you that have the reason.
A story is told of a gentleman bringing a foolish tract in manuscript to Sir
Thomas More, to obtain his opinion upon it. Sir Thomas strongly advised him
to put it into verse, and it appears the author followed his recommendation.
"Now it is somewhat like," said More, "now it is rhythm: before it was neither
rhythm nor reason." There is a well-known anecdote related of Spenser, that on
occasion of a royal order for a reward for one of his poems not having been duly
attended to, he addressed the following verses to Queen Elizabeth, here given on
the authority of Manningham's MS. Diary for 1602, —
It pleased your Grace upon a tyme,
To graunt me reason for my ryme ;
But from that tyme until this season,
I heard of neither ryme nor reason.
She gave me none.
"It is still customary in the west of England, when the conditions of a bargain
are agreed upon, for the parties to ratify it by joining their hands, and at the
same time for the purchaser to give an earnest. To this practice the poet aUudes."
— Henley.
And there an end.
This long line seems to be one of Speed's miserable attempts at rhyme. The
second folio reads, there's an end, but unnecessarily. See p. 56, and examples of
the phrase in Macbeth, Eichard IL, and 2 Henry IV.
All this I speah in print.
In print, with exactness ; a phrase probably derived from the regularity and
precision of printing. Still in provincial use. " Her lov'th to see everything in
print," i. e. in order, Palmer's Devonshire Glossary, p. 74. " To do a thing in
print, graphice et excpiisite agere," Coles. So, in the comedy of All Eooles, 1605:
"not a hair about his bulk, but it stands in prints Again, in the Portraiture of
Hj-pocrisie, bl. 1. 1589, " — others lash out to maintaine their porte, which must
needes bee in print''' Again, in Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, a young
lover, "must be in league with an excellent taylor, barber, have neat shooe-ties,
points, garters, speak in print, walk in print, eat and drink in print, and that
which is all in all, he must be mad in print." Compare, also, the Honest Whore,
i. 2., "I am sure my husband is a man in print for aU things," i. e., in exact and
NOTES TO THE SECOND ACT.
85
neat order. "To have his ruffes set in print, to picke his teeth, and play with a
puj)pet." — Bretons Oood and the Badde, 1616.
The cameleon love can feed on the air.
Here's your Amadis de Gaul; your lover in heroicks! Oh, Palmerin, Pal-
merin, how cheaply dost thou furnish out thy table of love? Canst feed upon a
thought; live upon hopes; feast upon a look; fatten upon a smile; and surfeit and
dye upon a kiss ! What a cameleon lover is a Platonick?
The World in the Moon, 4to. 1697.
Nourished hy my victuals.
Of the same opinion was a character in Cartwright's comedy of the Siege: —
"We're no such subtle feeders as to make meals on air, sup on a blast, and think
a fresh gale second course."
Be moved, he moved.
That is, be persuaded. "To move, suadeo," Coles. Malone's explanation can
scarcely be correct, for Silvia certainly has some consideration for her lover.
If you turn not.
That is, if your love for me does not alter.
We "11 mahe exchange.
The exchange of rings was a solemn mode of private contracts between lovers.
The custom is again aUuded to in Twelfth Night.
And seal the bargain with a holy hiss.
This phrase is scriptural. See Eomans, xvi. 16.
This left shoe is my father.
The useful fashion of having shoes adapted to the right and left feet, prevalent
in Shakespeare's day, entirely went out of fashion, and has only been revived in
modern times. The commentators have made long notes on the subject on a
passage in King John, which curiously show the difficulties experienced by the
antiquary in tracing the fluctuations of fashion in all matters regarding costume.
As white as a lily, and as small as a wand.
These are probably either proverbial phrases, or quoted from an old ballad.
/ am the dog.
So, in A christian turn'd Turke, 4to. Lond. 1612, — "you shaU stand for the
lady, you for her dogge, and 1 the page; you and that dogge looking one upon
another; the page presents himselfe," sig. G. 3. It is scarcely necessary to
observe that Launce's accumulated blundering is intentional on the part of the
author.
0, that she could speak now like an old woman!
The old copies read a would woman, a corruption so evident we are thrown
upon conjecture. Launce is speaking here of the shoe, and to make the repre-
sentation more distinct, wishes it could speak like an old woman. Pope is the
author of this reading. Theobald conjectures a wood woman, an emendation he is
very fond of, introducing it again into the Merry Wives of Windsor, but the
subsequent part of the passage appears to agree better with Pope's emendation.
"Here's my mother's breath up and down,'' i. e. exactly, in every respect. The
same phrase occurs in the second act of Much Ado About Nothing.
The Perkins MS. has wild woman {wold, wild as the wold, Capell, 156).
86
NOTES TO THE SECOND ACT.
Moiick Mason (cd. 1807, p. 15) thus cleverly defends Theobald's conjecture;
— "Launcc is describing the melancholy parting between him and his family. In
order to do this more methodically, he makes one of his shoes stand for his father,
and the other for his mother ; and when he has done taking leave of his father, he
says. Now come I to mij mother, turning to the shoe that is supposed to personate
her : and in order to render the representation more perfect, he expresses his wish
that it could speak like a woman frantic with grief! There could be no doubt about
the sense of the passage, had lie said — '0 that it could speak like a wood tvomanT
but he uses the feminine pronoun in s})eaking of the shoe, because it is supposed
to represent a woman."
If the tyd were lost.
An early instance of this quibble was pointed out by Boswell in Heywood's
Epigrammes nppon Frorerles, ed. 1577, —
The tyde tarietli no man, but here to scan
Thou art tyde so, that thou taryest every man.
Steevens has noticed two other instances of it; the first in Lilly's Endymion,
1591 : ''Epi. you know it is said, the tide tarrieth for no man. — Sam. True. —
Epi. A monstrous lye: for I was tyd two hours, and tarried for one to unlose me.'
The second in Chapman's Andromeda Liberata, 1614: 'And now came roaring to
the tied the tide^
^® Lose the tide.
Bepetitions of the kind here occurring in the text are so usual there is no
absolute necessity for any alteration. Perhaps we may read, lose the tyd, where
Pope would read, lose the Jtood ; and the same suggestion occurs in the Perkins
MS. Mr. Knight suggests the second tide is a pun on tied, which is, I think, the
more plausible opinion, looking to the arrangement of the subject in the
previous speeches.
And how quote you my folly?
%iote, to observe, to notice, to write down. Cf. Hamlet; "Webster's White
Devil, ed. Dyce, i. 84 ; Ben. Jonson's Eox, &c. Valentine, as Malone observes, in
his answer, plays upon the word, which was pronounced as if written coat. So, in
the Bape of Lucrece, 1594, — "the illiterate will cote my loathsome trespass in my
looks."
You forg'd a will, where every line you writ,
You studied where to qiiote your lands might lie.
The London Prodigal.
3Iy jerlcin is a doublet.
The jerkin was merely an outside coat, worn generally over the doublet,
wdiich it frequently closely resembled, but sometimes worn by itself. Its exact
shape and fashion varied at difPerent times, and the only absolute definition of it
I have met with, occurs in Meriton's Clavis, 1697, the compiler stating that
"a jerkin is a kind of jacket, or upper dublet, with four skirts or laps."
That the jerkin was worn over the doublet clearly appears from an anecdote
related by L'Estrange, the point of which turns on the gerfalcon being popularly
termed a jerkin, — "Sir Thomas Jermin going out with his brooke hawkes one
evening at Burry, they were no sooner abroad but fowle were found. He calls
out to one of his falconers: 'Lett out your jerkin; off with your jerkin.' The
fellow being into the wind did not heare him : he stormes and cries out still, —
'OfP with your jerkin, you knave, off with your jerkin!' Now it fell out there
was at that instant a plaine townsman of Burry, in a freeze jerkin, stood betwixt
NOTES TO THE SECOND ACT.
87
him and his falconer, who seeing Sir Thomas in such a rage, and thinking
he had spoken to him, unbuttons amaine, throwes off his jerkin, and beseeches
his worshippe not to be oflPended, for he would
off with his doublet too to give him content." —
MS. Harl. Cotgrave translates jiipjje, "a cas-
socke, long coat, loose jerkiti;" and Baret has,
"a jerkin of lether, collohium scorteum; a freese
jerkin, haUllement velu contre Vliyver; a jacket
or jerkin, tmicula." Levins, in his Dictionarie,
1570, has, "a jerkin, tunicellar and earlier,
Huloet, 1552, "jerkyn, cincticulusr To these
notices may be added the following. "The
hostler was in hys jerkyn, and hys shirte sieves
wer above his elbowes," Skelton's Merie Tales,
n. d. Ilahiliment sans manches, a jacket,
jerken, mandilion, trusse, or sleeveles coate,"
Nomenclator, 1580. "A jerkin, tunica; a
leather jerkin, colet" Minsheu, ed. 1627.
''Volante, a loose jerkin, or cassock, a man-
dilion," Cotgrave. "A jerkin, un saije, gippon;
a loose jerkin, volante, juppe-, a Spanish leather
jerkin, colet de marroquin^'' Sherwood. " Un
saye et une juppe de velour, a long coate and
a jerkin of velvet; dettx pourpoints de satin noir, two doublets of blacke
satin; nn cole tin de Jin drap noir, a jerkin of fine blacke cloath; im colet
de marroquin parf mne de muse, a Spanish leather perfumed jerkin; tm colet de
hmijle passemente d'or, a bufPe jerkin layd with gold lace," Marrow of the Erench
Tongue, 1625. "A jerkin, tunicula, colohium; a
frieze jerkin, endrotms" Coles. "A jerkin or little
jakket," Thomasii Dictionarium, 1596. The two
engravings here copied, one with the jerkin, the
other with the doublet, are taken from early black-
letter ballads. A document, dated 1554, mentions
some noblemen having "upon their arms goodly
jerkins of blue velvet." Pinking a jerkin, in other
words jagging it, is noticed in one of Hakluyt's
voyages; and EalstaflF tells Bardolph that an old
cloak will make a new jerkin.
Item, paied to Golde the hosyer for ij. payer of
hosen, a lether jerkyn, and a doublet of white
fustian for Haulf Mundy, xiiij.s., — Trimj Purse
Expences, 1530.
But my lorde Don Eelix had on a paire of ash
colour hose, embrodered and drawen foorth with
watchet tissue; his dublet was of white satten, embrodered with knots of golde,
and likewise an embrodered jerkin of the same coloured velvet; and his short cape
cloke was of blacke velvet, edged with gold lace, and hung full of buttons of
pearle and gold, and lined with razed watchet satten : by his side he ware, at a
paire of embrodered hangers, a rapier and dagger, with engraven hilts and
pommell of beaten golde. — Diana of George of Montemayor, 1598.
Why there's my cloake and hat to keep thee warme;
Thy cap and jerhin will serve me to ride in
By the way: thou hast winde and tyde — take oares.
A Pleasant Commodie called Loohe ahout You, 1600.
88 NOTES TO THE SECOND ACT.
"Wilt tlion ? 0 heavens, that a Christian shoukl be found in a buife jerkin ! —
Marsfoi/'s 3Lilcoiiteut^ IGOl.
Notices of the doublet are innumerable, and it would scarcely answer any
useful purpose to print a large collection of them. In Upper Thames Street, near
London 13ridge, is still standing an old warehouse known as the Doublet, and,
singularly enough, the ancient
sign, dated 1720, is preserved.
The annexed engraving of this
curious relic shows us exactly what
a doublet was at that period, and
indeed in the previous century, for
the sign itself is undoubtedly either
a copy or a restoration of a more
ancient one. The sleeves here ap-
pear as separately inserted, and,
indeed, the doublet was worn either
with or without sleeves. Holme
mentions "an high winged doublet
and short skirts, with trunk or
sailers breeches," Acad. Arm., iii.
19. The following notices of the
doublet may also be worth giving.
Item, ij. dowblett of grene
satten for the said ij. foutemen.
Item, iiij. dowbletts of sattyn of
briguse for the said ij. footemen ; videl. two dowbletts of yellow, and ij. of orrenge
coRor tawney. Item, ij. dowbletts of grene satten for the said ij. foowtemen.
Item, iiij. dowbletts of sattyn, &c. — Egremont MSS.
The modest upper parts of a concealing straight govme, to the loose, lascivious
open embracement of a French duhlet, being all unbutton'd to entyce, all of one
shape to hide deformitie, and extreme short-wasted to give a most easie way to
every luxurious action. — Hie Mulier, or the Man Woman, 1620.
The bombasting of long pease-cod-bellied doublets, so cumbersome to arme,
and which made men seeme so far from what they were, was sure invented in
emulation of the Grobian or All-paunch family, and the same affectation with
that of the Gordians and Muscovites, and other gorbellied nations. The slashing,
pinking, and cutting of our doublets, is but the same phansie and afPectation with
those barbarous gallants who slash and carbonado their bodies, and who pinke
and raze their sattin, damaske, and Duretto skins. I saw in Paternoster Eow,
the day this sheet came as a proofe unto me, the picture of Erancis the Eirst,
King of Erance, drawn in full length, who was painted in a jerkin-liJce doublet,
slashed in the breast downwards towards the beUy, which, for the curiosity of the
workmanship, and the singularity of the habit, was valued at two hundred pounds.
When we wore short-wasted doublets, and but a little lower than our breasts, we
would maintaine by militant reasons that the waste was in its right place, as
Nature intended it ; but when after (as lately) we came to weare them so long-
wasted, then began we to condemn the former fashion as fond, intollerable, and
deformed, and to commend the later as comely, handsome, and commendable. —
Bidwers Pedigree of the English Gallant, 1653.
It were enough should I hang out to view one of the suits that was generally
worn heretofore in England, where you had a dublet all jagg'd and prickt, the
wastband coming down but a little below the armholes, guarded with eight long
skirts ; to this dublet was clasped a pair of breeches close made to the body, and
whose length must make up the defect of the shortness of the dublet. The large
NOTES TO THE SECOND ACT.
89
and ample codpiss supplied the want of pockets, whicli came up with two wings
fastned to either side with two points, which unknit made way to the linnen bags
tyed to the inside between the shirt and codpiss. These bags held everything
they carried about them, excej^t the gloves, which ever hung very reverently at
the girdle, where hung a pouch made fast with a ring or lock of iron weighing
at least two or three pound, whether there was any money in it or no. — England's
Vanity, 1683.
Give me my cloak. Prfebeto mihi pallium. — 1 must go forth to day. Mihi
foris hodie eundum est. — Button your doublet. Confibulato diploidem. — The
coUar of your doublet is too high. Thoracis collare peccat in altitudine. — Why
do not you hook up your breeches? Quare non uncinulis femoralia diploidi nectis?
— It is not handsome to go with your doublet open. Non decorum est laxo
thorace incedere. — It is the fashion. Sic moris est. — It is the sloven's fashion
then. Nempe apud squalidos. — Familiares Colloqiiendi Formula, 1678.
Now the hot weather declines apace, and those that are not provided for
winter, it is high time now for them to look out sharp. The countryman now
before he goes to work, peeps out to see how he likes the weather, and consider
whether he had better cast off his doublet, or put on his coat upon it,or if he does
put it off when he goes to work, it is ten to one but that he puts it on as soon as
he has done. — Poor BoUn, 1735.
Give me leave, madam.
This is written, give Mm leave, in some early MS. extracts from this play.
Valentine uses a common phrase, equivalent to, — allow me to observe.
Know you Bon Antonio, your countryman?
" The characters being Italians, not Spaniards, Ritson proposes to omit Doti,
though we have had (as he acknowledges) Don Alphonso in a preceding scene ;
which shews decisively how very improper such an omission would be. Eor this
incongruity the youthful poet must answer." — Malone.
*° To he of icorth, and icorthy estimation.
In other words, — I know the gentleman to be of worth, and worthy of esteem,
and not dignified with so much reputation without proportionate merit. The
latter is Dr. Johnson's paraphrase of the last line. The repetition, toortli, iDortJiy,
is exactly in Shakespeare's manner, and again is used by Valentine in this same
scene, — " whose loorth makes other worthies nothing." So, also, in the first act,
eating canJcer, eating Love, occur in one line ; in the present act, " by longing for
that food so long a time ;" and instances are all but innumerable ; yet Mr. CoUier,
on the authority of Perkins, w ould read, to he oftcealtJi, to "avoid the ohjectionahle
repetition." Wealth is not an element in the cJiaracter of Antonio as given by
Valentine.
His years hit young, hut his experience old.
Sed gravibus curis animum sortita senilem,
Ignea .... frenatur corde juventus. —
Claud, in Consulat. Prob. et Olyb. 151*.
He is complete in feature.
" He has all the advantage which is derived from a handsome well-formed
person. Feature in the age of Shakspeare often signified both beauty of coun-
enance, and elegance of person. See EuUokar's Expositor, 8vo. 1616: 'Feature;
handsomeness, comelinesse, beautie.' So in Henry VI. Eirst Part : 'Her peerless
joined with her birth.' Again in Eichard III.: 'Cheated feature
dissembling nature.'" — Malone. " The feature, /y^m," Coles. " The featm-e and
n. 12
90
NOTES TO THE SECOND ACT.
fasliion, or the proportion and fig-nre of tlie whole bodie," Baret's Ah^earie, 1580.
" Tlie lair i'eature of her hmhs," Spenser.
*^ / need not cite him to it.
" To cite is to summon, to command. As Sir Proteus is your dear friend,
Valentine, I need not cite (charge and command) you to give him welcome — you
will gladly do it of your own will and motion." — JFliite's MS. Notes.
Upon some other paion for fealty.
Perhaps by this time she has set his eyes free, some other pledge being given
for his fidelity.
*^ /'// die on him that says so, but yoiirself.
In other words, I will contend to the death with any one except yourself, who
dares to say so. " He holds it next his creed, that no coward can be an honest
man, and dare die int. He doth not thinke his body yeelds a more spreading
shadow after a victory then before, and when he lookes upon his enemies dead
body, tis with a kinde of noble heavinesse, not insultation," Characters, Sir
Thomas Overbury, ed. 1G26.
That you are worthless.
Dr. Johnson reads, " No, that you are worthless;" but although this emendation
may give more power to the reply, we are clearly not warranted in so wide a
departure from the original without much greater necessity. Douce says the
measure is not defective, though the harmony is. The original text seems to be in
accordance with the metrical usages of the period.
Madam, my lord.
This speech is assigned to a servant by Theobald, but is rightly restored by
Collier and Knight to Thurio, who either retires at the entrance of Proteus, and
now re-enters, or steps to the door and receives the message.
Whose high imperious thoughts.
The imperial or commanding thoughts of love. Johnson unnecessarily reads
those. "Imperiosus, imperious, lordely, stately, full of commaundementes," Elyot's
Dictionarie, 1559. Imperiotis [which, in our author's time generally signified
imperial) is an epithet very frequently applied to love by Shakspeare and his
contemporaries. So, in the Famous Historic of George Lord Eaulconbridge,
' Such an imperious God is love, and so commanding.' A few lines lower,
Valentine observes that ' love's a mighty lord.'' That imperious formerly signified
imperial, is shewn by a passage in Hamlet ; Imperious Csesar dead and turn'd to
clay — and various others quoted there and elsewhere. See also Cawdray's Alpha-
betical Table of Hard Words, 8vo. 1604 : 'Imperious ; desiring to rule ; fuU of com-
manding ; stately.' " — Malone. First folio, emperious.
There is no tcoe to his correction.
To, compared to. See the verse from Wily Beguiled, quoted in vol. i., p. 271,
repeated also in Cupid's Whirligig, one copy of which, now before me, reads, —
So sweete a thing is Love,
That rules both heart and minde ;
There is no comfort in the world.
To toomen that are hlinde.
Herbert, as noted by Johnson, called for the prayers of the Liturgy a little
NOTES TO THE SECOND ACT.
91
before his death, saying, None to them, none to them. A poem, in the Paradise of
Dayntie Devises, is entitled, " No foe to a flatterer."
Ah Cselia look down from your window,
And view your poor lover a strowling.
How for puss I by night,
Quarrell, scratch, brawl, and fight,
There's no love to true caterwauling.
Win Her and Tahe Her, 4to. 1691.
In the next line, Mr. "Wheler's annotated foho reads, — " hut, to his service."
But she is an earthly paragon.
Compare a passage in Cymbeline, act iii. — Malone.
Yet let her he a ^^mncipality .
That is, if she is not divine, a goddess, at least acknowledge her to be
a principality or angel, superior to aU mortals. "Nor angels, nor principalities,
nor powers," Romans, viii. 38. "The first he calleth Seraphim, the second
Cherubim, the third thrones, the fourth dominations, the fift vertues, the sixt
powers, the seventh principalities, the eight archangels, the ninth and inferior sort
he caUeth angels," Scot's Discoverie of Witchcraft, 1584, p. 500.
Should from her vesture chance to steal a kiss.
Malone refers to Eichard IL, "You debase your knee, To make the base earth
proud by kissing it." — Braggardism ; first folio, hragardisme.
Disdain to root the summer-swelling Jloicer.
"I once thought," says Steevens, "that the poet had written summer-smelling
flower: but the epithet which stands in the text I have since met with in the
translation of Lucan by Sir Arthur Gorges, 1614, B. viii., p. 554.
no Eoman chieftaine should
Come near to Nyles Pelasian mould,
But shun that sommer-swelling shore.
" The original is — ripasque (Estate tumentes, 1. 829. May likewise renders it,
summer-swelled banks." — The summer-swelling flower, is the flower which swells
in summer tiU it expands itself into bloom." The Perkins MS. reads summer-
smelling, and a MS. commonplace-book of the seventeenth century, "disdaine to
heare the sommer swelling flower."
^* She is alone.
Unique in her perfections. A few lines after this, for the water, an old MS.
commonplace-book has it, their icater.
For love, thou hnow''st, is full of jealousy.
Bes est soUiciti plena timoris amor.
Even as one heat another heat expels.
So in Coriolanus, — "One fire drives out one fire; one nail one nail." " The
latter image," says Malone, "occurs also in the Tragical History of Bomeus and
Juliet, 1582 : which the poet may here have had in his thoughts, having, lilve the
author of that poem, applied this imagery to the subject of love:"
And as out of a planke a nayle a nayle doth drive,
So novel love out of the minde the ancient love doth rive.
" Un clou sert a pousser V autre, one nayle serves to drive out another ; one
92
NOTES TO THE SECOND ACT.
friend imployed to supplant the other," Cotgrave. So the okl Latin proverb,
cla vum claro pellcre.
Is it her mien, or Valentino's praise.
The first folio reads, "It is mine, or Valentine's praise ;" and the second, — "Is
it mine then, or Valentinian's praise," the latter reading not making very good
sense, Proteus not having praised her sulhciently to justify the meaning evidently
intended. The insertion of the personal pronoun, and interpreting mine as mien,
in consonance with the orthography of Shakespeare's age, were the happy
suggestions of Blakeway. Some would read, "Is it mine eye," but if the line
originally took a form like this, some other word, better suiting the context, would
probably have taken the place of eye. CapcU reads, — "Is it mine own, or Valen-
tino's praise," which latter is also found in the Perkins MS. "The objection to
then,'' observes Capell, "is — that Protheus had not prais'd her 'any farther than
giving his opinion of her in three words when his friend ask'd it of him :' if his
speeches be look'd into, we shall find a few more, and tokens of much praise;
and 'tis this suppress'd praise that Protheus fears had debauch'd him; Is it, says
he, the approof my heart gives her, or that of Valentine's tongue, that makes
me talk thus? and his very next line ascribes perfection to her: we may then infer,
safe enough, that the second folio has given his author's sense, and fail'd only in
the expression." Eyne, or eyen, was also suggested by the critics of the last
century.
LiTce a waxen image 'gainst a fire.
The opinion of the commentators that there is here an allusion to the figures
made by witches, as representatives of those whom they designed to torment or
destroy, seems to be an unnecessary refinement on the plain and obvious mean-
ing, especially as Shakespeare uses the same simile elsewhere. The same image
also occurs in Ovid, and in other writers.
/ love his lady too-too much.
I print too-too with a hyphen, as in the original. It is a genuine compound
archaism, used both as an adjective and adverb, meaning excessive or excessively.
I was the first to notice this in the Papers of the Shakespeare Society a few years
ago, but the truth has been disputed even against an overwhelming amount of
evidence, so difficult is it to establish a novelty in these matters.
^° With more advice.
That is, on further reflection. How shall I dote upon her on greater reflec-
tion, when I thus commence loving her without any reflection or deliberation?
"That is done in haste without advisement," Baret's Alvearie, 1580. "Advise
or conject how a thyng shall be done, prameditor," Huloet, 1552. "Yet did
repent me after more advice," Measure for Measure.
' Tis hut her picture I have yet heheld.
Pictiire does not of course here mean literally portrait, Proteus merely speak-
ing figuratively of her person being merely a picture, when placed in apposition
with her mind. He had only seen her outside form. In the following line, it
has been suggested we should read sight, but unnecessarily, light being metapho-
rically equivalent to it.
There is a somewhat similar image to this in the Scornful Lady, Beaumont
and Fletcher, ed. Dyce, iii. 96, —
I was mad once, when I lov'd pictures ;
Por what are shape and colours else but pictures ?
NOTES TO THE SECOND ACT.
93
In that tawny hide there lies an endless mass
Of virtues, when all your red and white ones want it.
And that hath dazzled my reason's light.
The editor of the second folio unnecessarily reads dazzled so, the first being a
trisyllable. Compare Drayton, —
A diadem once dazzling the eye,
The day too darke to see affinitie.
The plain meaning is, Her mere outside has dazzled me ; when I am ac-
quainted with the perfections of her mind, I shall be struck blind. — Malone.
"There is no reason but I shall be bhnd," either involves a singular construction,
a peculiar use of the word reason., or imposes the necessity of a new punctuation.
They are hath as whole as a fish.
My heart is well eased, and I have my wish;
This chafing hath made me as ivhole as a fish,
And now I dare boldly be merrie again.
Tom Tyler and his Wife, 4to. Lond. 1661.
San. Oh, Oh. Bids. Sanco. San. Don Euis — O, sir, are you alive? Rids.
And so art thou. San. Aye, sir, and as whole as a fish. A . . . on't, I could not
get my sword out. — Wrangling Lovers, or the Invisible Mistress, 1677.
^ My staff understands me.
This equivocation, says Johnson, miserable as it is, has been admitted by
Milton in his great poem, b. vi:
The terms we sent were terms of weight,
Such as we may perceive, amaz'd them aU,
And stagger'd many; who receives them right.
Had need from head to foot well understoAid;
Not understood, this gift they have besides.
To shew us when our foes stand not upright.
The same quibble occurs likewise in the second part of the Three Merry Cob-
lers, an ancient ballad :
Our work doth th' owners understand.
Thus still we are on the mending hand. — Steevens.
Other instances of this play upon words occur in the Comedy of Errors,
act ii., and Twelfth Night, act iii.
How sayst thou.
That is, what say'st thou to this?
If thou tcilt go, Sj'c, so j if not, thou art, 8fc.
The insertion of the word so, from the second folio, is adopted on the
judgment of Mr. Dyce, who considers it sufiiciently supported by a previous line,
"And, if it please you, so; if not, why so ;" and by similar phraseology in Henry IV.,
&c. The usage of so in this Avay is exceedingly common, but the original text
makes very good sense, provided a comma is placed after wilt.
^'^ As to go to the ale with a Christian.
Ale, the ale-house, as appears from Launce's previous feast ; and not a Church-
feast, in apposition to Christian. " Launce," says Mr. Knight, "calls Speed
a Jew because he will not go to the ale (the Church feast) with a Christian." 1
94
NOTES TO THE SECOND ACT.
cannot tliink this was intended, the appellation being proverbial. " They were
bound," says Falstaff, " eveiy man of them ; or I am a Jew else, an Ebreic Jew ;"
and in the present play, — " a Jew would have wept to have seen our parting."
Ale was not unusual in the sense of an ale-house.
I am ocupied eclie day,
Haly-day and oother,
With ydel tales at the ale.
And outher while at chirche. — Piers Ploughman.
Leve, lystynes to me,
Two wordys or tlire,
And herkenes to my songe ;
And I schalle telle 30w a tale,
Howe X. wyffys satt at the nale,
And no mane hem amonge.
The Tale of the x. Wyves^ Porkington MS.
When thei have wroght an oure ore two,
Anone to the ale thei wylle go. — MS. Ashmole 61, f. 25.
In the goodlyest maner, with game and gle,
To the ale they went, with hey troly loly.
Cryste Crosse me Spede, 4ito. bl. 1., n. d.
I am the spirit of the dead man that was slain in thy company, when we were
drunk together at the ale. — Greene's Looking Glass for London and England.
The banditti do you call them? I know not what they are call'd here, but I
am sure we call them plain thieves in England. O, Tom, that we were now at
Putney, at the ale there ! — Lord Cromtvell.
They which will eyther sleape at noone t}me of the day, or els make merye
with theyr neighbours at the ale. — Ascham's Toxophilus.
0 sweet-suggesting Love.
To suggest, to tempt. So, again in the next act, — ' Knowing that tender youth
is soon suggested.' The word often occurs in this sense in Shakespeare. The sense
of the whole is this, — O sweet-tempting Love, if thou hast sinned in bidding me
first swear fealty to one, and then to forswear it in favor of another, teach me, thy
tempted subject, how to excuse it. Some of the critics of the last century, and
the Perkins MS. notes, read, / have sinn'd, which not only deteriorates the
force of the passage, but does not make good sense, Proteus being still dehber-
ating whether he should sin or not. This reading is adopted by Victor, 1763.
To learn his wit.
To learn in the sense of, to teach, is common in old writers, and is still a
provincial mode of expression.
B]j their loss. So the first folio, the three later copies reading erroneously,
lilt their loss, thus " corrected" in the Dent annotated copy of the third folio, —
" but thus find I their loss."
'''^ For love is still most precious in itself.
So the original copies. Steevens reads more precious, and Perkins to itself,
but both wrongly. The meaning is this, — for love is always most esteemed when
its power is directed on one's self, and has, therefore, made him dearer to himself
(for the sake of love) than to a friend.
NOTES TO THE SECOND ACT.
95
'^^ His competitor.
His confederate or partner; not rival, as stated by Dr. Johnson. The word is
used in the same sense in Twelfth Night, iv. 2, and in several other passages in
Shakespeare.
''^ And pretended flight .
Pretetid, to intend. So, in Borde's Boke of the Introduction of Knowledge, ap.
Reed, — "I pretend to return and come round about thorow other regyons in
Europ."
Than dyd I go
Where I came fro.
And ever I dyd pretend
Not to tary long,
But of this song
To make a fynall ende.
The Armonye of Byrdes, n. d.
Synce the disappointing of their pretended rebellion, I am secretly given to
understande that some recusants have prepared themselves to flye beyonde sea. —
Letter dated 1586.
To plot this drift.
To Mercury I give my sharking shifts,
My two-fold false equivocating tricks ;
All cunning sleights, and close deceiving drifts,
Which to deceitfull wrong my humour pricks.
The Worhes of Taylor, the Water-Poet, 1630.
"1 suspect," says Dr. Johnson, "that the author concluded the act with this
couplet, and that the next scene should begin the third act; but the change, as it
will add nothing to the probability of the action, is of no great importance."
The third folio reads, by mistake, his for this, and Mr. Wheler's annotated
copy of that volume has cross this drift, a striking instance of the rashness of the
MS. annotators. The first-mentioned error also occurs in the second folio.
And, ev'n in hind love, I do conjure thee.
Mr. Knight alters the contracted ev'n of the first folio to even, to obtain the
present pronunciation of conjure; but Shakespeare has the accent on the first
syllable of this word in passages that decide the pronunciation.
Who art the table.
AUuding to the tables or tablets universally used for memoranda in Shake-
speare's time. The poet elsewhere writes, "unclasp the tables of their thoughts."
Didst thou hut know the inly touch of love.
Inly is here an adjective, as in the following passage in the Tragedy of
Hoffman, 4to. Lond. 1631, —
Trust me, Lorrique, besides the inlie griefe
That swallowes my content, when I perceive
How greedily the fierce unpitying sea, and waves,
Devour'd our frends, another trouble greeves my vexed eyes
With gastly apperitions, strange aspects,
Which eyther I doe certainely behold. — Hoffman, 163i.
The third folio reads inchly.
96
NOTES TO THE SECOND ACT.
'''' Giving a gentle kiss to every sedge.
— Hast not observ'd the sea?
"Where every wave that hastens to the bank,
Though in its angry course it overtake a thousand petty ones,
How unconcern'd 't\^dll triumph o'er their ruin,
And make an easie passage to the shore, —
Ger. Which in its proud career 'twill roughly kiss.
And then 'twill break to nothino-.
The Young King, or the Mistake, 4to. 1698.
''^ No, girl ; Fll knit it tip in silken strings.
The annexed cmious engraving of a lady whose hair is thus tied, was selected
by Mr. Eau-holt, to illustrate the present line, from a monument in Ashford
Church, CO. Kent, respecting which I have col-
lected the following particulars.
The lady from whose effigy the engraving is
taken, was Katlierine, daughter of Sir John
Smythe of Ostenhanger, who married Sir Harry
Baker of Sissinghurst. Her hair appears to be
drawn tightly off the face, over a sort of rounded
lozenge, and fastened at the back of the head with
bows of ribbon in the centre, at the top, and at the
sides. The date of the monument has been satis-
factorily ascertained by the researches of Viscount
Strangford (kindly communicated to me by the
Rev. L. B. Larking), to belong to a period some-
where in or between the years 1608 and 1611.
Eynes Morison, in his Itinerary, 1617, describing the dress of the English
ladies, says, — "Gentlewomen virgins weare gownes close to the body, and aprons
of fine linnen, and goe bareheaded, icith their haire curiously knotted, and raised
at the forehead ; but many against the cold (as they say) weare caps of haire that
is not their owne, decking their heads with buttons of gold, pearles, and flowers
of silke, or knots ofrihhen."
''^ With ttventy odd- conceited true-love knots.
"True love, in triie love knot, which is never to be untied, and in the north is a
knot delineated with a pen, or cut in a seal, which country sweethearts make use
of as a symbol, when they give promise of marriage, or promise to be faitlifuU to
one another; and when they write to one another they seal their letters with a
true love knot, and if either of them prove false, he or she is said to break their
true love knot, and that is a great reproach. Now this knot is not so called from
true love but from the old Danish or Islandick word trulofa, fidem dare promittere,
which is compounded of tru, fides, and lofa, polliceri, promittere : and it is specially
used in marriage contracts, so, ad virginem desponsatam viro, Luc. i. 27, is
rendered, til eirnrar meyar, er trulofad war eiuiim manne, verbatim, ad unam
virginem qua desponsata erat uni viro.'' — Kennett, MS. Lansd. 1033.
He beres in cheef of azour,
Engrelyd with a satur.
With doubule tressour.
And treweloves bytwene ;
NOTES TO THE SECOND ACT.
97
Hys bagges this blake,
For he wol no man forsake,
A lyoun tyed to an ake
Off gold and of grene :
An helme ryche to behold ;
He beres a dolfyn of gold.
With treweloms in the mold,
Compasyd ful cleue. — Sir Begrevant.
Farthingale.
The farthingale was properly the broad roll used for making the gown ridicu-
lously full about the hips, though the term was sometimes applied to the gown
itself when so widened. Holmes, describing gowns of this fashion, says they were
" broad shouldered, narrow wasted, wide breeched, and gathered in plaits and
trusses to make it full in the sku't."
You must needs have them icith a codpiece.
An account of this part of our ancestor's costume will be found in the
notes to King Lear. The engraving of a man with the round hose, here repre-
sented, is taken from a black-letter ballad
formerly in the Heber collection. " If you
aske why I have put him in rounde hose, that
usually weares Yenetians, it is because I would
make him looke more dapper and plump and
round upon it, whereas otherwise he looks like
a case of tooth-pickes, or a lute-pin put in a
sute of apparell," Nash's Have with You to
Saffron Walden, 1596.
®^ Out, Out, Lucetta!
This is equivalent to fie, fie, or get out, hegone!
The exclamation is common in Shakespeare and
aU our old dramatists. So in Chapman's version
of the thirteenth Iliad : ' Otit, out, I hate ye
from my heart, ye rotten-minded men!' And in
Every Man out of his Humor, 1600, sig. G. iv,
"Out, out! unworthy to speake where he breatheth."
A round hose, madam, novfs not worth a pin.
Although most readers will be familiar with the above phrase, yet, as there is
no telling to what lengths conjectural criticism may proceed, even in the simplest
passages, it may be as well to quote an example or two. "And yet my tale not
worth a pinne," Chm'ch-yarde's Chippes, 1578 ; "Apothecaries were not worth a
pin," Taylor's Workes, 1630.
And instances of infinite ofi love.
Considering infinite here as a substantive, the construction is included in the
rule mentioned at vol i., p. 281, where the substantive in the genitive case is to be
construed adjectively. The line would then be explained thus, — and infinite
instances of love. The editor of the second folio, not understanding this construc-
tion, reads, — " and instances as infinite of love ;" and so iifiiiite has also been
suggested, as well as, of the infinite. "And although the life of it be stretched
with infinite of tgme," Chaucer's Boetius, ed. Urry, p. 403. Shakespeare else-
II. 13
9S
NOTES TO THE SECOND ACT.
>vliere uses the lufuute as a substantive. Thus, inl\Tiioh Ado about Nothing: ' It
is past the injinite of tliouf>-ht.' Again, in Troikis and Cressida : ' The past pro-
jiortion of liis infinite^ Lijinites, as Malonc observes, appears even in the latter
end of tlie sixteenth century to have been used as a substantive in the sense of
an iiifiiiitij. Thus in the Memoirs of Lord Lonsdale written in 1G88, and printed
in 1808, p. 49: 'Lijinites oi mm prest for the shippes and forces drawn out of
L-eland.' It may be just worth note that " instance of love" is a phrase also used
by Ben Jonson in Volpone.
An infinite of emmets lay upon a vineyard, and sore spoyl'd the vines. A
beggar by cliance conuiiing that way, and hearing thereof, undertooke only for
ten daies victualls, to destroy them all. Then made he a little leather bag and
sow'd within it a scrowle, as it might seeme a charme, and buried it in the highest
plot of the vine-yeard, and so let it lie. — Copley's Wits, Fits, and Fancies, 1614.
" His words are bonds." A similar thought occurs in Chaucer's Dreame, ed.
Urry, p. 579,—
— that yet in aU mine age
Herd I nevir so conningly
Man speke, ne halfe so faithfully,
Eor every thing he said there
Semid as it inselid ivere.
Or approvid for very trew.
To furnisli me tipon my longing journey.
If the report be good, it causeth love,
And longing hope, and weU assured joy. — Davies.
All that is mine I leave at thy dispose.
Dispose, disposal. " Shee's doom'd alreadie, and at your dispose," Nobody
and Somebody, with the true Chronicle Historic of Ely dure, n. d.
The building is much handsomer than I,
But both are (equally) at your dispose:
The rooms of state your lordsliip may see now.
But 'twill be dinner-time ere I can show you
The private lodgings. — The Slighted Maid, p. 20.
SCENE I. — Milan. An Ante-room in the Duke's Palace.
Enter Duke, Thurio, and Proteus.
Duke. Sir Thurio, give us leave, I pray, awhile;
We have some secrets to confer about. \_Exit Thurio.
Now, tell me, Proteus, what 's your will with me?
Pro. My gracious lord, that which I would discover.
The law of friendship bids me to conceal:
But, when I call to mind your gracious favours
Done to me, undeserving as I am.
My duty pricks me on to utter that
Which else no worldly good should draw from me.
Know, worthy prince, sir Valentine, my friend.
This night intends to steal away your daughter;
Myself am one made privy to the plot.
I know you have determin'd to bestow her
On Thurio, whom your gentle daughter hates;
And should slie thus be stol'n away from you,
It would be much vexation to your age.
Thus, for my duty's sake, I rather chose
To cross my friend in his intended drift.
Than, by concealing it, heap on your head
A pack of sorrows, which would press you down,
Being unprevented, to your timeless grave. ^
Duke. Proteus, I thanli thee for thine honest care;
Which to requite, command me while I live.
100 THE TWO GENTLEMEN OE VEEONA. [act iii. sc. i.
This love of theirs myself have often seen,
Haply when they have judg-'d nie fast asleep;
And oftentimes have purpos'd to forhid
Sir Valentine lier eompany, and my conrt:
But, fearing lest my jealous aim might err/
And so, unworthily, disgrace the man,
(A rashness that 1 ever yet have shunn'd,)
I gave him gentle looks, therehy to find
That whieli thyself hast now disclos'd to me.
And, that thou may'st pereeive my fear of this.
Knowing that tender youth is soon suggested,
I nightly lodge her in an upper tower.
The key whereof myself have ever kept ;
And thenee she eannot he eonvey'd away.
Pro. Know, nohle lord, they have devis'd a mean
How he her cliamher-window will ascend,
And with a corded ladder fetch her down;
For w^hich the youthful lover now is gone.
And this way comes he with it presently;
AYhere, if it please you, you may intercept him.
But, good my lord, do it so cunningly.
That my discovery be not aimed at;
For love of you, not hate unto my friend.
Hath made me publisher of this pretence.^
Du/xe. Upon mine honour he shall never know
That I had any light from thee of this.
Pro. Adieu, my lord; sir Valentine is coming. [Exit.
Enter Valentine.
Duhe. Sir Valentine, whither away so fast?
Val. Please it your grace, there is a messenger
That stays to bear my letters to my friends,
And I am going to deliver them.
Duke. Be they of much import?
Val. The tenor of them doth but signify
My health, and happy being at your court.
Duke. Nay, then, no matter; stay with me awhile;
I am to break w ith thee of some affairs.
That touch me near, wherein thou must be secret.
'T is not unknown to thee, that I have sought
To match my friend, sir Thurio, to my daughter.
Val, I know" it well, my lord; and, sure, the match
ACT III. SC. I.] THE TWO GENTLEMEN OF VEEONA.
Were rich and honourable; besides, the gentleman
Is full of virtue, bounty, worth, and qualities
Beseeming such a wife as your fair daughter:
Cannot your grace win her to fancy him?
Duhe. No, trust me; she is peevish, sullen, fro ward,
Proud, disobedient, stubborn, lacking duty;
Neither regarding that she is my child.
Nor fearing me as if I were her father:
And, may I say to thee, this pride of hers.
Upon advice, hath drawn my love from her;
And, where^ I thought the remnant of mine age
Should have been cherish'd by her child-like duty,
I now am full resolv'd to take a wife,
And turn her out to who will take her in:
Tlien let her beauty be her wedding-dower.
For me and my possessions she esteems not.
Val. Wliat would your grace have me to do in this?
Duke. There is a lady of Verona^ here.
Whom I affect; but she is nice and coy,
And nought esteems my aged eloquence:
Now, therefore, would I have thee to my tutor,
(For long agone I have forgot to court:
Besides, the fashion of the time is chang'd;'')
Plow, and which way, I may bestow myself,
To be regarded in her sun-bright eye.
Val. Win her with gifts, if she respect not words ;^
Dumb jewels often, in their silent kind.
More than quick words, do move a woman's mind.
Duke. But she did scorn a present that I sent her.
Val. A woman sometime scorns what best content her
Send her another; never give her o'er;
For scorn at first makes after-love the more.
If she do frown, 't is not in hate of you,
But rather to beget more love in you :
If she do chide, 't is not to have you gone ;
For why, the fools are mad, if left alone.
Take no repulse, whatever she doth say:
For 'get you gone,' she doth not mean 'away!"'
Flatter, and praise, commend, extol their graces;
Though ne'er so black, say they have angels' faces.
That man that hath a tongue, I say, is no man,
If with his tongue he cannot win a woman.
102
THE T^YO GENTLEMEN OE VERONA, [act hi. sc. i.
Duhe. But she I mean is promis'd by her friends
Unto a youthfid gentleman of worth,
And kept severely from resort of men,
That no man hath aecess by day to her.
Val. Why, then I would resort to her by night.
Duke. Ay, but the doors be loek'd, and keys kept safe,
That no man hath recourse to her by night.
Fal. \Miat lets^° but one may enter at her window?
Duke. Her chamber is aloft, far from the ground.
And built so shelving that one cannot climb it
Without apparent hazard of his life.
Fal. Why, then, a ladder, quaintly made of cords,
To east up with a pair of anchoring hooks,
Would serve to scale another Hero's tower.
So bold Leander would adventure it.
Duke. Now, as thou art a gentleman of blood.
Advise me where I may have such a ladder.
Fal. When would you use it? pray, sir, tell me thaf .
Duke. This very night; for Love is like a child,
That longs for every thing that he can come by.
Fal. By seven o'clock I '11 get you such a ladder.
Duke. But, hark thee; I will go to her alone;
How shall I best convey the ladder thither?
Fal. It will be light, my lord, that you may bear it
Under a cloak that is of any length.
Duke. A cloak as long as thine will serve the turn?
Fal. Ay, my good lord.
Duke. Then let me see thy cloak:
I'll get me one of such another length.
Fal. Why, any cloak will serve the turn, my lord.
Duke. How shall I fashion me to wear a cloak? —
I pray thee, let me feel thy cloak upon me." —
What letter is this same? What's here? — ' To Silvia?'
And here an engine fit for my proceeding!
I'll be so bold to break the seal for once. [
My tliouglits do harbour with my Silvia nightly;
And slaves they are to me, that send them flying :
0, could their master come and go as lightly,
Himself would lodge where senseless they are lying.
My herald thoughts in thy pure bosom rest them ;
While I, their king, that thither them importune,^^
Do curse the grace that with such grace hath bless'd them,
Because myself do want my servants' fortune :
ACT III. sc. I.] THE TWO GENTLEMEN OF VEEONA.
103
I curse myself, for they are sent by me,^^
That they should harbour where their lord should be.
What 's here?
Silvia, this night I will enfranchise thee :
'T is so; and here 's the ladder for the purpose.
Why, Phaeton, (for thou art Merops' son,")
Wilt thou aspire to guide the heavenly car,
And with thy daring folly burn the world?
Wilt thou reach stars, because they shine on thee^^^
Go, base intruder! overweening slave!
Bestow thy fawning smiles on equal mates;
And think my patience, more than thy desert,
Is privilege for thy departure hence:
Thank me for this, more than for all the favours.
Which, all too much, I have bestowed on thee.
But if thou linger in my territories,^''
Longer than swiftest expedition
Will give thee time to leave our royal court.
By heaven, my wrath shall far exceed the love
I ever bore my daughter, or thyself.
Begone! I will not hear thy vain excuse;
But, as thou lov'st thy life, make speed from hence. [Exit Duke.
Val. And why not death, rather than living torment ?^^
To die, is to be banish'd from myself;
And Silvia is myself: banish'd from her.
Is self from self: a deadly banishment!
What light is light, if Silvia be not seen?
What joy is joy, if Silvia be not by?
Unless it be to think that she is by.
And feed upon the shadow of perfection.
Except I be by Silvia in the night,
There is no music in the nightingale;
Unless I look on Silvia in the day.
There is no day for me to look upon:
She is my essence; and I leave to be,^^
If I be not by her fair influence
Foster'd, illumin'd, cherish'd, kept alive.
I fly not death, to fly his deadly doom:'''
Tarry I here, I but attend on death;
But, fly I hence, I fly away from hfe.^^
lOJi THE TAVO GENTLEMEN OE VEEONA. [act iii. sc. i.
Enter Proteus and Launce.
Pro. Run, boy; run, run, and seek him out.
Laiin. So-hougli ! — so-liougli
Pro. Wliat seest thou?
hami. Ilim we go to find:
There's not a hair on's head, but 't is a Valentine.
Pro. Valentine?
Vol. No.
Pro. Who then? his spirit?
Vol. Neither.
Pro. What then?
Vol. Nothing.
Lmm. Can nothing speak? Master, shall I strike?
Pro. Who would'st thou strike?
Laun. Nothing.
Pro. Villain, forbear!
Laun. Wliy, sir, I'll strike nothing: I pray you, —
Pro. Sirrah, I say, forbear: Friend Valentine, a word.
Val. ^ly ears are stopp'd, and eannot hear good news.
So much of bad already hath possess'd them.^^
Pro. Then in dumb silence will I bury mine.
For they are harsh, untuneable, and bad.
Val. Is Silvia dead?
Pro. No, Valentine.
Val. No Valentine, indeed, for sacred Silvia! —
Hath she forsworn me?
Pro. No, Valentine.
Val. No Valentine, if Silvia have forsworn me!
What is your news?
Laun. Sir, there is a proclamation that you are vanished.
Pro. That thou art banish'd, — O, that is the news;
From hence, from Silvia, and from me, thy friend.
Val. O, I have fed upon this woe already,
And now excess of it will make me surfeit.
Doth Silvia know that I am banished?
Pro. Ay, ay; and she hath offered to the doom
(Which, unrevers'd, stands in effectual force)
A sea of melting pearl, which some call tears :^*
Those at her father's churlish feet she tender'd;
Witli them, upon her knees, her humble self ;
Wringing her hands, whose whiteness so became them,
ACT III. sc. I.] THE TWO GENTLEMEN OE VEEONA.
105
As if but now they waxed pale for woe :
But neither bended knees, pure hands held up,
Sad sighs, deep groans, nor silver-shedding tears,
Could penetrate her uncompassionate sire;
But Valentine, if he be ta'en, must die.
Besides, her intercession chaf'd him so.
When she for thy repeal was suppliant,
That to close prison he commanded her,
With many bitter threats of biding there.
F^al. No more; unless the next word that thou speak'st
Have some malignant power upon my life:
If so, I pray thee, breathe it in mine ear,
As ending anthem of my endless dolour.
Pro. Cease to lament for that thou canst not help.
And study help for that which thou lament'st.
Time is the nurse and breeder of all good.
Here if thou stay, thou canst not see thy love;
Besides, thy staying will abridge thy life.
Hope is a lover's staff ; walk hence with that,
And manage it against despairing thoughts.
Tliy letters may be here, though thou art hence:
Which, being writ to me, shall be deliver'd
Even in the milk-white bosom of thy love.
The time now serves not to expostulate:
Come, I'll convey thee through the city gate;
And, ere I part with thee, confer at large
Of all that may concern thy love-affairs:
As thou lov'st Silvia, though not for thyself,
Regard thy danger, and along with me.
F^al. I pray thee, Launce, an if thou seest my boy.
Bid him make haste, and meet me at the north gate.
Pro. Go, sirrah, find him out. Come, Valentine.
F^al. O my dear Silvia! hapless Valentine!
[Exeunt Valentine and Proteus.
Laun. I am but a fool, look you;"'' and yet I have the wit to
think my master is a kind of a knave : but that's all one, if he
be but one knave. He lives not now, that knows me to be in
love: yet I am in love; but a team of horse^^ shall not pluck
that from me ; nor who 't is I love, and yet 't is a woman : but
what woman, I will not tell myself ; and yet 't is a milk-maid ;
yet 't is not a maid, for she hath had gossips :"° yet 't is a maid,
for she is her master's maid, and serves for wages. She hath
n. 14
106
THE TWO GENTLEMEN OE VEEONA. [act iii. sc. i.
more qualities than a water-spaniel, — wliicli is nnicli in a bare
Christian.^" Here is the eatelog [^pulling out a paper^ of her
eonditions.^^ "Imprimis, She ean feteh and carry." Why, a
horse ean do no more: nay, a horse eannot feteh, but only carry;
therefore is she better than a jade. "Item, She can milk;" look
you, a sweet virtue in a maid with clean hands.
Enter Speed.
Speed. IIow now, signior Launee? what news with your
mastership?
Laun. With my master's sliip?^^ why, it is at sea.
Speed. Well, your old vice still; mistake the word: What
news, then, in your paper?
Laun. The blackest news that ever thou heard'st.
Speed. Why, man, how black?
Laun. Why, as black as ink.
Speed. Let me read them.
Laun. Fie on thee, jolt-head! thou canst not read.
Speed. Thou liest: I can.
Laun. I will try thee. Tell me this: Wlio begot thee?
Speed. Marry, the son of my grandfather.
Laun. O illiterate loiterer! it was the son of thy grand-
mother:^^ this proves that thou canst not read.
Speed. Come, fool, come : try me in thy paper.
Laun. There; and Saint Nicholas be thy speed !^*
Speed. "Item, She can milk."^'
Laun. Ay, that she can.
Speed. "Item, She brews good ale."
Laun. And thereof comes the proverb, — Blessing of your
heart, you brew good ale.^''
Speed. "Item, She can sew."
Laun. That's as much as to say, Can she so?
Speed. "Item, She can knit."
Laun. Wliat need a man care for a stock with a wench, when
she can knit him a stock ?^^
Speed, "Item, She can wash and scour."
Laun. A special virtue; for then she need not be wash'd and
scour'd.
Speed. "Item, She can spin."
Laun. Then may I set the world on wheels,^^ when she can
spin for her living.
Speed. "Item, She hath many nameless virtues."
ACTni. sc. I.] THE TWO GENTLEMEN OE YEEONA.
107
Laun. That's as much as to say, bastard virtues; that,
indeed, know not their fathers, and therefore have no names.
Speed. Here follow her vices.
Laun. Close at the heels of her virtues.
Speed. "Item, She is not to be kissed fasting/^ in respect
of her breath."
Laun. Well, that faidt may be mended with a breakfast.
Read on.
Speed. "Item, She hath a sweet mouth." *°
Laun. That makes amends for her sour breath.
Speed. "Item, She doth talk in her sleep."
Laun. It's no matter for that, so she sleep not in her talk.
Speed. "Item, She is slow in words."
Laun. O villain, that set this down among her vices ! To be
slow in words is a woman's only virtue : I pray thee, out with 't,
and place it for her chief virtue.
Speed. "Item, She is proud."
Laun. Out with that, too; it was Eve's legacy, and cannot be
ta'en from her.
Speed. "Item, She hath no teeth."
Laun. I care not for that neither, because I love crusts.*^
Speed, "Item, She is curst."
Laun. Well; the best is, she hath no teeth to bite.
Speed. "Item, She will often praise her hquor."*^
Laun. If her liquor be good, she shall: if she will not, I will;
for good things should be praised.
Speed. "Item, She is too liberal."*^
Laun. Of her tongue she cannot, for that 's writ down she is
slow of: of her purse she shall not, for that I '11 keep shut:
now of another thing she may, and that cannot I help. Well,
proceed.
Speed. "Item, She hath more hair than wit, and more faults
than hairs, and more wealth than faults."
Laun. Stop there! I '11 have her! k:>lio was mine, and not
mine, twice or thrice in that last article. Rehearse that once
more.
Speed. "Item, She hath more hair than wit,"^ —
Laun. More hair than wit, — it may be; I 'U prove it. The
cover of the salt hides the salt,^^ and therefore it is more than
the salt; the hair that covers the wit is more than the wit, for
the greater hides the less. What 's next?
Speed. — "And more faults than hairs," —
lOS TIJE TWO GENTLEMEN OE VEEONA. [act in. sc. ii.
Laun. That's inonstroiis: O, that tliat were out!
Speed. — "And more wealth than faults."
Lnun. Why, that Avord makes the faults gracious t*^" Well, I'll
have her: And if it he a match, as nothing is impossihle, —
Speed. Wliat then?
Laun. Why, then ^vill I tell thee, — that thy master stays for
thee at the north gate.
Speed. For me?
Laun. For thee? ay: who art thou? he hath stay'd for a
better man than thee.
Speed. And must I go to him?
Laun. Thou must run to him, for thou hast stay'd so long,
that going will scarce serve the turn.
Speed. Why didst not tell me sooner? 'pox of your love-
letters! [Exit.
Laun. Now will he be swing'd for reading my letter! An
immannerly slave, that will thrust himself into secrets! — I '11
after, to rejoice in the boy's correction. [Exit.
SCENE II. — The same. A Room in the Duke's Palace.
Enter Duke and Thurio.
Duhe. Sir Thurio, fear not but that she will love you,
Now Valentine is banish'd from her sight.
Thu. Since his exile, she hath despis'd me most,
Forsworn my company, and rail'd at me,
Tliat I am desperate of obtaining her.
Duhe. This weak impress of love is as a figure
Trenched in ice,*' which, with an hour's heat.
Dissolves to water, and doth lose his form.
A little time will melt her frozen thoughts.
And worthless Valentine shall be forgot. — \E71ter Proteus.
How now, sir Proteus? Is your countryman,
According to our proclamation, gone?
Pro. Gone, my good lord.
Duhe. ^ly daughter takes his going grievously.**
Pro. A little time, my lord, will kill that grief.
DuJie. So I believe; but Thurio thinks not so. —
Proteus, the good conceit I hold of thee,
(For thou hast shown some sign of good desert)
Makes me the better to confer with thee.
ACT III. SC. n.] THE TWO GENTLEMEN OE VEEONA.
Pro. Longer than I prove loyal to your grace,
Let me not live to look upon your graee.
Duke. Thou know'st how willingly I would effect
The match between sir Thurio and my daughter.
Fro. I do, my lord.
Duke. And also, I think, thou art not ignorant
How she opposes her against my will.
Fro. She did, my lord, when Valentine was here.
Duke. Ay, and perversely she persevers so.
What might we do, to make the girl forget
The love of Valentine, and love sir Thurio?
Fro. The best way is, to slander Valentine
With falsehood, cowardice, and poor descent.
Three things that women highly hold in hate.
Duke. Ay, but she '11 think that it is spoke in hate.
Fro. Ay, if his enemy deliver it:
Therefore it must with circumstance^^ be spoken
By one whom she esteemeth as his friend.
Duke. Then you must undertake to slander him.
Fro. And that, my lord, I shall be loth to do:
'T is an ill office for a gentleman.
Especially against his very^° friend.
Duke. Where your good word cannot advantage him.
Your slander never can endamage him;'^
Therefore the office is indifferent.
Being entreated to it by your friend.
Fro. You have prevail'd, my lord : if I can do it.
By aught that I can speak in his dispraise,
She shall not long continue love to him.
But say, this weed her love from Valentine,^^
It follows not that she will love sir Thurio.
Thu. Therefore, as you unwind her love from him,^^
Lest it should ravel, and be good to none.
You must provide to bottom it on me;^^
Which must be done by praising me as much
As you in worth dispraise sir Valentine.
Duke. And, Proteus, we dare trust you in this kind ;
Because we know, on Valentine's report.
You are already Love's firm votary.
And cannot soon revolt"' and change your mind.
Upon this warrant shall you have access
Where you with Silvia may confer at large ;
110
THE TWO GENTLEMEN OE VEEONA. [act iii. sc. ii.
For she is lumpish/" heavy, melancholy,
And, for your friend's sake, will he glad of you;
AMicre you may temper her," hy your persuasion,
To hate young Valentine, and love my friend.
Pro. As much as I can do, I will effect: —
But you, sir Thurio, are not sharp enough;
You must lay lime,^*^ to tangle her desires,
By wailful sonnets, whose composed rhymes
Should be full fraught with serviceable vows.
Duke. Ay, much is the force of heaven-bred poesy.
Pro. Say that upon the altar of her beauty
You sacrifice your tears, your sighs, your heart:
Write tiU your ink be dry; and with your tears
Moist it again; and frame some feeling line,.
That may discover such integrity:^''
For Orpheus' lute was strung with poets' sinews,^*'
Whose golden touch could soften steel and stones,
IMake tigers tame, and huge leviathans
Forsake unsounded deeps to dance on sands.
After your dire-lamenting elegies,
Visit by night your lady's chamber-window
With some sweet consort:''^ to their instruments
Tune a deploring dump;*'^ the night's dead silence
Will well become such sweet complaining grievance.
Tliis, or else nothing, will inherit her.^^
Duke. This discipline shows thou hast been in love.
T/iu. And thy advice this night I' U put in practice.
Therefore, sweet Proteus, my direction-giver.
Let us into the city presently
To sort''* some gentlemen well skill'd in music:
I have a sonnet that will serve the turn,
To give the onset to thy good advice.
Duke. About it, gentlemen.
Pro. We '11 wait upon your grace till after supper ;
And afterward determine our proceedings.
Duke. Even now about it; I will pardon you."^ [Exeunt.
^ Being unprevented.
The third folio reads tmprepared, a striking instance of the editor's incompe-
tency to deal with the text.
^ Lest my jealous aim might err.
Aim, guess. Used as a verb a few lines afterwards, and several times in other
plays. "I ayme, I mente or gesse to hyt a thynge, je esme^ Palsgrave, 1530.
^ PuhUsher of this pretence.
Pretence, design, purpose. The word occurs twice in this sense in King Lear,
and it is also found in Macbeth. "A pretence, purpose," Minsheu.
* Where I thought.
Whereas I thought. " Cum nihil prmcipi posse dicamus, where we aflB.rme that
there can be nothing prescribed," Phraseologia Puerilis, 1667.
^ There is a lady of Verona here.
The original reads, " There is a lady in Verona here," an oversight which
must, in aU probability, be attributed to the author himself. Pope reads, " There
is a lady, sh, in Milan, here ;" and the Perkins MS., " in Milano here," which
latter requires better support before it could be received, the accent in the original
folio being on the first syllable. The alteration here adopted seems less violent
than any other, and on that account to be preferred, when we are attempting a
correction of Shakespeare's own words.
" The fashion of the time.
" The modes of courtship, the acts by which men recommended themselves to
ladies," Johnson.
Win her with gifts, if she respect not words.
Wherefore, Leander's fancy to surprise.
To the rich ocean for gifts he flies :
'Tis wisdom to give much; a gift prevails.
When deep-persuading oratory fails.
Ifarloice's Eero and Leander, Works, ed. Dyce, iii. 33-i.
112
NOTES TO THE THIBD ACT.
Again, in the First Part of Jeronymo, 1605: though written much earher:
(quoted by Beed)
let his protestations be
Fashioned with rich jewels, for in love
Great gifts and gold have tlic best tongues to move.
Let him not sweare an oath without a jewel
To bind it fast: oh, I know women's hearts
What stuff they are made of, my lord; gifts and giving,
WiU melt the chastest seeming female living.
^ TFJiat best content her.
"The rhpiie, which was evidently here intended, requires that we should read,
'what best content her,' The word what may imply those which, as well as that
which." — MoncJc Mason.
^ For, Get you gone, she doth not mean. Away.
So, in the Shoo-makers Holy-day, or the Gentle Craft, with the humorous Life
of Simon Ejre, Shoo-maker and Lord Mayor of London, 1631, —
All this, I hope, is but a woman's fray.
That meanes. Come to me, when she cries. Away.
And, earlier, in Hawes' Pastime of Pleasure, 1555, sig. K. ii, —
Porsake her not, thoughe that she say naye,
A woman's guyse is evermore to delaye.
With these may be compared the following lines in John Heywoode's Woorkes,
4to. Lond. 1576,—
Say nay and take it; yea, say nay and take it;
But say nay, or say yea, never forsake it.
Say nay and take it; heare me say this o thing;
Say notlier yea nor nay; takte and say nothing.
^° What lets.
That is, what hinders. "To let, to hinder, ohsto," Baret's Alvearie, 1580.
"Let or hinder a tale, ohacero," Huloet's Abcedarium, 1553. "To lett or hinder,
empescher," Sherwood's Dictionarie, 1632. "A certain chance did let me from
doing of it, casus quidam me facere impedivit," Coles; "what doth let why it
should not be, quod ohstat quo minus fiat," ibid. Compare Hamlet, act i.. Twelfth
Night, act v.. Comedy of Errors, act ii., &c. The term is still retained in some
legal documents. "That lets her not to be your daughter," Middleton's No AYit
like a Woman, 1657.
Yet though I wryte not with ynke.
No man can let me thynke,
Por thought hath lyberte.
Thought is franke and fre. — Phyllyp Sparowe, 1198.
Let me feel thy cloak upon me.
The Dent annotated copy of the third folio adds the stage-direction, discloses
him; and two lines afterwards, the Perkins MS. has, ladder and letter fall out,
the letter of course falling out before the ladder does. It seems strange that
Valentine, thus furnished for his undertaking, should be now carrying a letter
addressed to Silvia.
NOTES TO THE THIED ACT.
113
That tMther them importune.
Importune seems to be here used in a peculiar sense, to command or require
service.
For they are sent hy me.
For, for that, because. His thoughts rest in Silvia's bosom, — referring to the
custom of ladies carrying letters in a pocket in the fore part of their stays. Pro-
teus afterwards promises to deliver Valentine's letters "even in the milk-white
bosom of thy love." So, in Hamlet, — "In her excellent white bosom, these;" and
in Gascoigne's Hundreth Sundrie Elowres bounde up in one smaU Poesie, p. 206,
mention is made of a love-letter, "at deliverie therof, she understode not for
what cause he thrust the same into hir bosome." Malone refers to Surrey's Son-
nets, 1557 : —
My song, thou shalt attain to find the pleasant place.
Where she doth live, by whom I live; may chance to have the grace,
When she hath read and seen the grief wherein I serve.
Between her brests she shall thee put, there shall she thee reserve.
"Trifling as the remark may appear," observes Steevens, "before the meaning
of this address of letters to the bosom of a mistress can be understood, it should
be known that women anciently had a pocket in the fore part of their stays, in
which they not only carried love-letters and love tokens, but even their money
and materials for needle-work. Thus Chaucer, in liis Merchantes Tale: 'This
purse hath she in hire hosome hid.' In many parts of England the rustic damsels
still observe the same practice; and a very old lady informs me that she remem-
bers, when it was the fashion to wear very prominent stays, it was no less the
custom for stratagem or gallantry to drop its literary favours within the front of
them." Brathwait, in his English Gentleman, 1641, speaks even of ladies carry-
ing smaU pamphlets in their bosoms.
For thou art Merops son.
Eor Merops, the reader may be referred to Ovid, Trist. III. iv. 30, Metam. i.
763, ii. 184. " Merops, maritus Clymenes, pater putativus Phaethontis et rex
Ethiopse," not. ad ibid. See, also, Golding's translation of the latter. Johnson
thus explains the passage, — "Thou art Phaeton in thy rashness, but without his
pretensions ; thou art not the son of a divinity, but a terra Jilius, a low-born
wetcli; Merops is thy true father, with whom Phaeton was falsely reproached."
This scrap of mythology Shakespeare, says Steevens, might have found in the
spurious play of K. John, 1591: — "as sometime Phaeton, mistrusting siUy Merops
for his sire;" or in Eobert Greene's Orlando Eurioso, 1594:
Why, foolish, hardy, daring, simple groom,
Eollower of fond conceited Phaeton, &c.
Upton is of opinion that "the comment on this passage, if it requires any,
should be. Why, Phaeton, wilt thou, of low birth, and who vainly vauntest thyself
to be the son of Phoebus, aspire to guide, &c." Perhaps, however, /or thou art
Merops^ son, is merely to be understood as, "who art the son of Merops."
Wilt thou reach stars, because they shine on thee ?
Ah, Eawnia, why doest thou gaze against the sunne, or catch at the winde?
Starres are to be looked at with the eye, not reacht at with the hande: thoughts
are to be measured by fortunes, not by desires ; falles come not by sitting low, but
by cUming too hie. — The Historic of Dorastus and Faicnia, 1588.
II. 15
114
NOTES TO THE TIIIllD ACT.
If thou linger in my territories.
An early MS. extract reads oitr in })lace of mi/, and, in tlie next line, the
swiftest. A passage similar to the present occnrs in King Lear, act i.
^'^ And why not death, rather than living torment?
Banish'd the kingdom? 'Tis a benefit,
A mercy I must thank 'em for: but banish'd
The free enjoying of that face I die for.
Oh, 'twas a studied punishment ; a death
Beyond imagination! such a vengeance.
That, were 1 old and wicked, all my sins
Cou'd never pluck upon me. Palamon,
Thou hast the start now, thou slialt stay, and see
Her briglit eyes break each morning 'gainst thy window.
And let in life into thee: thou shalt feed
Upon the sweetness of a noble beauty.
That nature ne'er exceeded, nor ne'er shall :
Good gods — what happiness has Palamon!
Twenty to one, he'll come to speak to her.
And if she be as gentle, as she's fair,
I know she's his : he has a tonn^ue will tame
Tempests, and make the wild rocks wanton. Come what can come.
The worst is death 1 will not leave the kingdom : . . . .
I'll see her, and be near her, or no more.
The Two Nolle Kinsmen, act ii., sc. 2.
Banisht the Court? Let me be banislit life;
Since the chiefe end of life is there concluded :
Within the Court is all the Kingdome bounded ;
And as her sacred spheare doth comprehend
Ten thousand times so much, as so much place
In any part of all the empire else;
So every body, mooving in her spheare,
Containes ten thousand times as much in him,
As any other her choice orbe excludes.
As, in a circle, a magitian then
Is safe against the spirit he excites ;
But out of it, is subject to his rage.
And looseth all the vertue of his art:
So I, exil'd the circle of the court,
Loose all the good gifts that in it I joy'd.
Jonsons Poetaster, or the Arraignment, 1602.
And feed zipon the shadow of perfection.
Animum pictura pascit inani. — Virg. {quoted hy Henley).
And I leave to he.
Leave, cease, leave ofP. " I leve, I cease, je cesse ; he never lefte callyng upon
me tyU he had his desyre," Palsgrave, 1530. " I counsell them to rest their
railing, and leave their brabling, least perchaunce they heare of their owne
prankes." — Barefs Alvearie, 1580.
Let's visit them, and slyde from our aboade ;
Who loves not virtue leaves to be a god.
Marstotis Masque at Ashhy Castle, MS.
NOTES TO THE THIRD ACT.
115
" Ordndifinem facito, cease to intreate me any more ; leave to pray me any
longer," Terence in English, 1614.
^° / fly not death, to jly his deadly doom.
I do not escape from Death by flying from his deadly sentence. So Donne, —
Go, and if that word have not quite kill'd thee,
Ease me with death, by bidding me go too.
But, jly I hence, I fly away from life.
How many deaths are in that word depart. — Bryden.
So-hongh! so-hough!
So the old copy, altered by modern editors to so-ho. The original, however,
expresses the old hunting cry when the hare was found, and exhibits more clearly
Launce's foolish quibble. "So-howe, the hare ys fownde, hoema lepus est in-
veiitiis," Prompt. Parv. So, in the old poem on the hare, preserved in MS.
Cantab. Ef. v. 48, f. 109,—
Eachis rennyng on every side
Be falowe before me for to fynde;
These hunters wil on her horses ride.
And cast the cuntre with the wynde.
When they loken toward me,
1 loke asyde, I lurke fulle lowe;
The furst man that me may see,
Anon he cryes, So-howe! so-hoive!
Lo! he seith, here sittes an hare!
Hise up, Wat, and goo be-lyve!
Then with myculle sorow and care,
Unnethe I may scape with my lyve.
And, again, in a poem (temp. Eliz.), the Hare to the Hunter, —
Sa haw, sayth one, as soone as he me spies;
Another cryes, Noiv, now, that sees me start ;
The hounds call on with hydeous noyse and cryes ;
The spurgalde jade must gallop out his part.
An illustration of this subject is afforded by the annexed engraving from a
seal of the fourteenth century, discovered in Sussex, of a hare in the centre, the
legend being, so. hov. so. hov. This curious specimen was obtained by Mr.
Eairholt. I have seen another specimen, the legend of
which is, so. hov. ie. aim. koev., but the last word is
indistinct, and it may be doubted whether the copy is
correct.
So, sir, when we had rewarded our dogges with the
small guttes and the lights, and the bloud, the huntsmen
hallowed, so ho, Venue a coupler, and so coupled the
dogges, and then returned homeward ; another company
of houndes that lay at advantage, had their couples cast
off, and we might heare the huntsemen cry, 'horse,
decouple, Avant,' but streight we heard him cry, le Amond, and by that I knew
that they had the hare and on foote, and by and by I might see sore and resore,
prick, and reprick : what, is he gone ? ha, ha, ha, ha, these schollers are the
simplest creatures ! — The Beturnefrom Bernassus, 1606.
116
NOTES TO THE TIIIIID ACT.
So much of had already hath possess' d them.
So the old copies, vctrs l)einf>- used as a singular noun. In the next line, an
old MS. connnonplace-book reads dull silence.
A sea of melting pearl, ichich some call tears.
So, in Sir J. Suckling-'s Ag-laura, fol. 1G38, — "Nothing but pearle dissolv'd,
teares still fresh fcteli'd from lover's eyes, which if they come to be warme in
the carriage, are streight cool'd with sighs."
*^ Though not for thyself.
The Dent annotated copy of the third folio omits for. The meaning of the
original is, — though not for thy own sake. Have regard to the danger of your
position for the sake of Silvia, even if you are indifferent to it on your own account.
/ am hut a fool, look yon.
" The character of Speed is that of a shrewd witty servant. Launce is some-
thing diilerent, exhibiting a mixture of archness and rustic simplicity. There is
no allusion to dress, nor any other circumstance, that marks either of them as the
domestic fool or jester." — Bonce.
^"^ Thafs all one, if he he hut one hiave.
Launce seems to be as usual punning, and says, "if he be hut 07ie knave, that's
all oueT it is, indeed, a very fortunate thing if he is only a single knave, not a
double one both to his mistress and friend. A person knave enough to pass for
two, in other words, a very great knave, was proverbial. Thus, in Damon and
Pithias, 1571,—
A villaine for his life, a varlet died in graine.
You lose money by him if you sell him for one knave, for he serves for twaine.
Again, in Like Will to Like, quoth the Devil to the Collier, 1587, —
Thus thou may'st be called a knave in graine,
And where knaves be scant, thou may'st go for twayne.
I desire no more cunning than I now have, and I'll serve you stiU and set up
for myself; for I had rather be a double knave than a single fool. — Two Wise
Men, and all the rest Fools, 1619.
"This most poor passage," says Capell, "has employ'd a number of pens, and
aU unsuccessfully; for, as it appears to the editor, the full force and conceit of it
has not been seen into yet : the expression is quibbling, as was proper, but the
sense serious : — my master, says the speaker, is a kind of knave: but that were no
great matter, if he were but one knave; but he is ttoo, — a knave to his friend, and
a knave to his mistress: and out of this intimation, this imply'd mistress, rises the
thought that follows, about his being himself in love, and the consequent pleasant-
ries in the description of his mistress."
A team of horse shall not pluch that from me.
This metaphor, observes Dr. Slierwen, is still used by the mountebank's Merry
Andrew in giving a character of the Doctor's Plaster. One of the spectators is
made to ask if the plaster will draw well — " aye, that it wdll ; it will draw a
broad-wheel waggon up the Castle Ditch without horses." The expression in
the text is proverbial. So, in the Loyal Subject, 1647, — "A coach and four horses
cannot draw me from it;" and in Twelfth Night, — "oxen and wain-ropes cannot
hale them together." Johnson refines too much on Launce's character, when
he glosses the passage thus, — "I see how Valentine suffers for telling his love
secrets; therefore I will keep mine close."
NOTES TO THE THIED ACT.
117
'■^^ For she hath had gossips.
Gossips were sponsors at baptism, and the women wlio attended confinements.
Launce's quibbles are sometimes scarcely worth explanation. "I hope it is a good
sign that I shall sliortly be a gossip over again, for I must be thy perpetual gossip;
but the poor fool Kate hath, by importunity, gotten leave of me to send thee both
her rich chains; and this is now the eighth letter I have written for my two boys,
and six to Kate," Letter of King James I., 1623.
^° In a hare Christian.
Bare, mere. So, in Coriolanus, — " 'tis but a bare petition of the state."
Here is the cate-log of her conditions.
Conditions, qualities. This is the reading of the fourth folio, the others read-
ing condition. There is a scene, slightly similar to the present one, in Heywood's
Love's Mistress, or the Queen's Masque, 4to. Lond. 1640, — ''Sioa. Eirst, she's old.
— Clo. It was very well said, to ^d^j first, because she was before us, and for old,
is not age reverend? and therefore in mine eyes she's honourable. — Sica. And
wrinkled. — Clo. Is't not the fashion? do not our gentles wear their hair crisped,
the nimphs their gowns pleated, and the fawns their stockings, for the more grace,
wrinkled? doth not the earth shew well when 'tis plowed, and the land best when
it lyes in furrows? — Swa. Besides, she hath a horrible long nose. — Clo. That's to
defend her lips! But, thou sinner to sence, and renegade to reason, dost thou
blame length in anything? Dost thou not wish thy life long, and know'st thou
not that truth comes out at length? When all our joyes are gone and past, doth
not Long-looked-for come at last ? If any of our nimphs be wrong'd, wiU she
not say, 'tis long of me, 'tis long of thee, or long of him ? If they buy any como-
dity by the yard, do they not wish it long? Your advocate wishes to have a law-
suit hang long, and the poor client, be his cloak never so short and thred-bare,
yet would be glad to wear it longer."
Mr. Singer reads condition, quoting from Baret, 1580, — "a condition, honest
behaviour or demeanour in living, a custome, or facion." Huloet, in his Abce-
darium, 1552, gives only the following uses of the word, — " condition, effect or
purport of a matter; condicion, state, or qualitye." Compare Palsgrave, 1530,
" condycions, maners, meurs ;" and Cotgrave, in the same word, " manners, con-
ditions, qualities, fashions."
And by her supersticyons.
And wonderful! condityons. — Fhyllyp Sparotce.
Eor I knowe his olde gise and condicion.
Never to leave tyU all his mony bee goon.
A new Enterlued named Jache Jugeler, n. d.
But kepe his olde condicions,
Eor all the newe comyssyons. — Boctour Bouhhle Ale, n. d.
JFith my master s ship.
The first foho reads, " With my mastership." The requisite correction was
made by Theobald.
It teas the son of thy grandmother.
This speech, left to itself, is very humorous, Launce seizing the opportunity of
an absurd joke to prove jocularly his position. Steevens, I think unnecessarily,
considers there may be an allusion to the well-known proverb of the mother only
knowing the legitimacy of the child.
lis
NOTES TO THE TKIllD ACT.
And Saint Nicholas he Ihy speed.
Saint Nicholas was the patron saint of school-boys and scholars; the origin
of the patronage being- tlnis aceounteil for in an Italian life of the saint, printed in
the year 10-15, — " The fame of St. Nicholas's virtues was so great, that an Asiatic
gentleman, on sending- his two sons to Athens for education, ordered them to call
on the bishop for his benediction, but tiiey, getting to Myra late in the day,
tlioug-ht proper to defer their visit till the morrow, and took up their lodgings at
an inn, where the landlord, to secure their baggage and effects to himself,
nuu'dered them in their slee}), and then cut them into pieces, salting them, and
})utting them into a pickling tub, with some pork which was there already,
meaning to sell the whole as such. The bishop, however, having had a vision of
this im})ious transaction, immediately resorted to the inn, and, calling the host to
him, reproached him for liis horrid villany. Tiie man, perceiving that he was
discovered, confessed his crime, and entreated the bishop to intercede on his
behalf to the Almighty for his pardon ; wlio, being moved with compassion at his
contrite behaviour, confession, and thorough repentance, besought Almighty God
not only to pardon the murderer, but also, for the glory of his name, to restore life
to the poor innocents who had been so inhumanly put to death. The saint had
hardly finished his prayer, when the mangled and detached portions of the two
} ouths were, by divine power, reunited, and perceiving themselves alive, threw
themselves at the feet of the holy man to kiss and embrace them. But the bishop,
not suffering their humiliation, raised them up, exorting them to return thanks to
God alone for this mark of his mercy, and gave them good advice for the future
conduct of their lives ; and then giving them his blessing, he sent them with great
joy to prosecute their studies at Athens." Tlie same story is told in Wace's Life
of St. Nicholas, v. 216,—
Trei clerc aloent a escole,
N'en ferai mie grant parole,
Lor ostes par nuit les oscit,
Les cors muscea, I'avoir enprit;
Saint Nicholas par Deu le sout,
S'einpres fu la si cum Deu plout.
Les clers al oste demanda,
N'as pout muscier, si li mostra.
Seint Nicholas par sa priere
Les ames mist el cors ariere.
For ceo que as clers tist tiel honor,
Eont li clerc feste a icel jor
De bien lirre, de bien chantier,
E de miracles recitier.
Another reason is assigned in the English festival, f. 55, ap. Erand : — "It is
sayed of his fader, hyght Epiphanius, and his moder Joanna, &c., and when he was
born, &c. they made him Christin, and called hym Nycholas, that was a mannes
name; but he kepeth the name of the child, for he chose to kepe vertues, meknes,
and simplenes ; he fasted Wednesday and Eriday; these dayes he would soiihe hut
ones of the day, and thencyth held him plesed. Thus he lyved all his lyf in vertues
with his childes name, and therefore children doe him icorship before all other
saints, &c," Wace's story is found in the early English metrical lives.
"That this saint presided over young scholars may be gathered from Knight's
Life of Dean Collet, p. 362; for by the statutes of Paul's school, there inserted, the
Three clerks went to school,
I will not make a great talk about it,
Their host slew them at night.
Hid the bodies, and took their money;
St. Nicholas, through God, knew it,
Eor he was near there, as it pleased God.
He asked the host for the clerks.
He could not conceal them, so he showed
them to him.
St. Nicholas by his prayer
Restored the souls back to the body.
Because he did to the clerks such honour.
The clerks keep his festival on that day
With good reading, and good chaunting,
And reciting of his miracles.
NOTES TO THE TIIIRD ACT.
119
cliildrcn are required to attend divine service at the catlieilral on his anniversary.
The reason I take to be, that the legend of this saint makes him to have been a
bishop, while he was a boy," — Sir J. Umoh'ms. "So, Puttenham, in his Art
of Poetry, 1589: — Methinks this fellow speaks like bishop Nicholas; for on Saint
Nicholas's night commonly the scholars of the country make them a bishop, who,
like a foolish boy, goeth about blessing and preaching with such childish terms,
as raaketh the people laugh at his foolish counterfeit speeches." — Steevens. A
curious practice, still kept up in schools, refers to this patron saint. When a boy
is hard pressed in any game depending upon activity, and perceives his antagonist
gaining ground upon him, he cries out Nic'las, upon which he is entitled to a sus-
pension of the play for a moment; and on any occasion of not being ready, wanting,
for instance, to fasten his shoe, or remedy any accidental inconvenience, the
cry of Niclas always gives him a right to protection. When the inveterate
punster Launce says, "be thy speed," he quibbles on the name of Speed.
Item, she can milh.
AU editors read imprimis, but the "cate-log" was not intended to blunder,
however Launce and Speed might. I think this alteration will be considered right
by any one who will carefully read the preceding speeches. Dr. Parmer would
omit this, and the next speech, on the ground that " there is not only no attempt
at humour in them, contrary to all the rest in the same dialogue, but Launce
clearly directs Speed to go on with the paper where he himself left off." May not
Launce, however, desperate in his efforts for the creation of a quibble, intend a
pun on the word can — a can of milk ? AYitli respect to Parmer's suggestion of
omitting the passage, Malone judiciously remarks, — "Of all the modes of
emendation, omission is, in my opinion, the most dangerous ; and therefore
nothing but the most cogent reasons shall ever induce me to omit what is found in
the most authentic copies. A compositor may inadvertently repeat a word
in a line, or his eye may catch a word from a preceding or subsequent line, and
hence the sense of a passage may b^ destroyed ; but he never invents whole lines
or speeches, nor do transcribers. Shakespeare, we know, in repeating a letter
already recited from a paper, sometimes varies the words, in spite of the adage,
litera scripta manet ; and therefore, I am confident, took no care that Speed
should begin where Launce left off."
Blessing of your heart, ijoji hreiD good ale.
We sell good ware.
And we need not care
Though court and country knew it;
Our ale's o' the best.
And each good guest
Prays for their souls that brew it.
Jonsons Masque of Augurs, Works, vii. 435.
She can knit him a stocJc.
See observations on stoch in the notes to Twelfth Night.
Then may I set the world on wheels.
The world no more shall run on wheels
With coachmen, as't has done.
But they must take them to their heeles,
And try how they can run.
The Coaches' Overthrow, a baUad, bl. 1.
120
NOTES TO THE THIRD ACT.
The annexed curions satirical cncfraving is copied from one in a very scarce
tract by Taylor the Water-Poet, entitled, ' The World runnes on Wheeles, or
Oddes betwixt Carts and Coaches,' London, Printed by E. A. for Henry Gosson,
1623, the following " meaning of the embleme" being inserted on a leaf opposite the
title-page : —
The devill, the flesh, the world doth man oppose,
And are his mighty and his mortall foes :
The devill and the whorish flesh drawes still,
The world on wheeles runs after with good wiU ;
Por that which wee the world may justly call, —
I meane the lower globe terrestriall,—
Is, — as the devill, and a whore doth please, —
Drawne here and there, and every where, with ease :
Those that their lives to vertue heere doe frame,
Are in the world, but yet not of the same.
Some such there are, whom neither flesh or devill
Can wilfuUy drawe on to any evill :
But for the world, as 'tis the world, you see
It runnes on wheeles, and who the palfreys bee.
Which embleme, to the reader doth display
The deviU and the flesh runnes swift away.
The chayn'd ensnared world doth foUow fast,
Till all into perditions pit be cast.
The picture topsie-turvie stands kew-waw :
The world turn'd upside downe, as all men know.
The tract itself is a tirade against coaches, and commences as follows : — "What
a murraine, what piece of work have we here ? The World runs a Wheeles !
NOTES TO THE THIED ACT.
121
On my conscience, my dung-cart wiU be most unsavourly offended with it. I
have heard the wordes often, — The World runs on Wheeles ! What, like Pompeies
Bridge at Ostend, the great gridyron in Christ-church, the landskips of China, or
the new found instrument that goes by winding up like a Jacke, that a gentleman
entreated a musitian to rost him SeUenger's Eound upon it?"
She is not to he Mss'd fasting.
The word Mss'd, which is not in the original, was added by Eowe, and has
been generally adopted. I doubt whether it be absolutely necessary.
Item, She hath a sweet mouth.
That is, she is fond of good living, a proverbial phrase scarcely out of use.
We still say a person has a siveet tooth, who is fond of delicacies and sweetmeats.
Launce chooses to take the expression literally. A.mQ%i-\v^^, friand, fria^ideau,"
Sherwood, 1632. " Saucie, lickorous, daintie-mouthed, sweet-toothed," Cotgrave.
" I am glad that my Adonis hath a sweet tooth in his head," Lilly's Euphues and
his England, 1623.
That consume what soo ever may be gotten by lande or see, not to susteyne
theyr lyfe, but to delyte their swete mouthes. — Of the Wood called Guaiacum,
12mo. Lond. 1539 And I praye God they may ones be broughte to extreme
hunger, whyche nowe serche in al places, not for meate to Ip-e with, but for
delycates and deynties, wherewith they may stere up their sweete mouthes, and
provoke theyr appetites. — Ihid.
Let su•eet-mo^lth'' d Mercia bid what crowns she please
Eor half-red cherries, or green garden peas,
Or the first artichokes of all the year.
To make so lavish cost for little cheer.
HalVs Satires, book iv., satire 2.
Because I love crusts.
Love, like. So Tusser, —
Serve them with hay while the straw stover last ;
Then love they no straw — they had rather to fast.
She iDill often praise her liquor.
"That is," says Johnson, "shew how well she likes it by drinking often;" she
has it always at her call. She may praise it, because it is her own brewing.
^ She is too liberal.
The following memoranda are taken from Johnson, Steevens, and Malone.
Liberal, is licentious and gross in language. So, in OtheUo : ' Is he not a most
profane and liberal counsellor?' Again, in the Eair Maid of Bristow, 1605,
But Yallenger, most like a liberal viUain,
Did give her scandalous ignoble terms.
Again, in Woman's a Weathercock, by N. Eield, 1612 :
■ next that the fame
Of your neglect and liber al-taUdng tongue.
Which breeds my honour an eternal wrong.
To which may be added the following example of the word in Bastard's
Chrestoleros, 1598, —
Caius wiU doe me good, he sweares by all
That can be sworne, in swearing liberall.
ii. 16
122 NOTES TO THE TEIRD ACT.
^ She hath more hair than icit.
A favorite old English proverb. "Bush natural, marc hair than wit,"
Yorkshire Ale, 8vo. Lond. 1097.
Bare and uncover' d ? he whose years do rise
To their full height, yet not bald, is not wise :
The head is wisdom's house, hair but the thatch ;
Hair ? it's the basest stubble ; in scorn of it
This ])roverb sprung, — He has more hair than wit ;
Mark you not, in derision how we call
A head grown thick with hair, bush-natural ?
Becker s JJntnming of the Humorous Poet.
Steevens also refers to Bhodon and Iris, 1G31 : — "Now is the old proverb
really perform'd : More hair than wit ;" and Singer cites Elorio, — " a tisty-tosty
wag-feather, more liaire than wit."
Thinne hayres and thicke wittes be deintie ;
Thicke hayres and thinne wittes be plentie.
Thicke hayres and thicke wittes be skant ;
Thinne hayres and thinne wittes none want.
Hey wood's Epigrammes upon Proverhes, 1577.
*^ The cover of the salt hides the salt.
The salt, or the large and high salt-ceUar, of our ancestors, was generally
])laced in the middle of the table, and formed a conspicuous feature in the appear-
ance of the entertainment, as they were frequently highly ornamented. Sometimes
the bowl which held the salt was supported by grotesque figures, but in the
one here represented, the stand is
merely a highly ornamented cylinder.
The original of the latter is in silver,
and according to Mr. Eairholt, "when
the cover is removed, the salt is ex-
posed in a shallow cup, which does not
descend deeper than the base of the
curved rim of the upper part of the
vessel." Sir John Arden, in his will
dated 1526, leaves his son Thomas
" the best salt with a cover" and to his
son John "the secunde salt with a
cover." Another will, dated 1554,
mentions " my best sylver salt with the
cover, havinge a borrall in the bottome,
and a George on the toppe ;" but there
were also great varieties of salts of in-
ferior descriptions, which were inde-
pendent of the larger salt, the latter
becoming gradually more for ornament
and distinction than for use. In the
Boke of Kervynge, printed by Wynkyn
de Worde in 1513, in the directions
for laying out the table, — "than set
your salt on the ryglit syde where your
soverayne shaU sytte, and on the lefte syde the salte set your trenchours ; than
laye your knpes, and set your brede one lofe by another, your spones and your
NOTES TO THE THIED ACT.
123
napkyns fayre folden besyde your brede ; than cover your brede and trenchoures,
spones and knyves, and at every ende of the table set a salte seller, with two
treachoiir loves." The author says shortly afterwards, "and whan your soveraynes
table is thus arayed, cover all other hordes with salte, trenchoures, and cuppes."
When the guests were assembled on both sides of a long table, the position of the
principal salt marked the distinction between their ranks, the superior guests being
placed above, the others helow the salt. There are numerous allusions, in our old
writers, to this invidious distinction. Of the salt itself, notices all but innumerable
may be collected from the wills and inventories of the period.
Jan. 19th, borrowed of Adam Holland of Newton £5 till Hilary day, uppon a
silver salt dubble gilt, with a cover waying 14 oz. — Br. Bee's Bianj, IGOl.
Garnish'd with salts of pure beaten gold,
Whose silver-plated edge of rarest mould,
Mov'd admiration in my searching eye,
1^0 see the goldsmith's rich artificy.
Middletons Works, ed. Dyce, v. 492.
Item, 2 lowe and flatt trencher saltes. — Item, one double salt with a cover aU
razed with two scutchions of the Bromleys amies, and a pheasant upon the cover.
— MS. Inventory of JFJiite Plate, 1628. — Item, one small bell salt, MS. Ibid.
— Item, two great saltes sutable, whereof one hath a cover, MS. list of Plate
parcell guilt, ibid. — Item, one great salt upon three round balles, three hawkes
feete, with a cover having a man in the topp holdinge a speare in the one hand,
and a scutchion of my master's coate in the other. — Item, one imbossed salt
standinge upon three feete, with dogges heades, and with a cover havinge on the
head a man holdinge a clubbe in the one hand, and a scutchion of my master his
coate of armes in the other. — Item, one pounced salt, Avith a cover. — -Guilt plate
in the heepinge of Beatrice Old, MS. Ibid. 1628.
Item, one guilt salte with a cover, and two christall standerds, \.li. x.s. — Two
salts (silver) and one cover, weighinge 50=11 oz., two triangle salts and two other
salts weighinge 19 ounces. — One salte weighinge 205 oz. — A bell salt. — One gilt
salte and two covers weighinge 68 oz. — MS. Inventory of the Ooods of the Countess
of leicester, taken 1634-5.
The lorde whoe beeinge an earle or upwardes, if hee bee servide in staite, liee
is to have in the greate chamber a cloathe of estate accordinge to his place, vidz.
an earle to the pummell of his chaire, a marquesse to the seate of his chaire, a
duke to within a foote of the grounde, placede in the upper ende thereof, with
chaire, cushinge, and stooles suetable thereunto, and at dinner, or supper, is to
have his seate in the midest of the table, a littell ahove the salte, his face beeinge to
the whole vewe of the chamber, and oposite to him the carver is to stande, and at
the upper hannde of the carver, the countis, or ells to sitte above the carver of the
same side hee is of, oposite to her lorde; and in this service it is to bee notede that
the lordes messe is to bee placed above the salte, and his service of meate to be^
presented before him in order, as it is servide up, and the best sorte of straungers
are to bee placede at the upper ende of the table, above the lorde and ladie, as the
principall place, and those so placede, the carver is to have a speciall respecte unto,
for those beneath the salte, if any sucli bee so placed, the carver is not to dcale
withall, but by derection from the lorde or ladye, as at theire pleasure in curtesie.
— A Breviate touching the Order and Governuiente of a Nobleman's House, 1605.
Now for his fare, it is lightly at the cheefest table, but he must sit under the
salt; that is an axiome in such places. — Nixon s Strange Foot- Post, 1613.
Old Homer in his time made a great feast,
And every Poet was thereat a guest:
12i
NOTES TO THE TniED ACT.
All had tlicir welcome; yet not all one fare;
To them above the salt (his chiofest care)
He spewd a banquet of choise Poesie,
Whereon they fed even to satietie.
Iluttoiis Follies Anatomie, 1G19.
There is another sort worse then these, that never utter anything of their owne,
but get jests by heart, and rob bookes and men of prettie tales, and yet hope for
this to have a roome above the salt. — Ussaijes hij Cornwallyes, 1632, No. 13.
That patience is the lard of the leane meate of adversitie. The epicure puts
his money into his belly, and the miser his belly into his purse. That the best
company makes the upper end of the table, and not the salt-celler. — Tlie Overhimj
Characters, ed. 1G2G.
He shall weare a cloake, and a paire of boots as long, borrow your horse as
often, and ride him as well as the best in the towne: and shal as respectively diet
him, and shooe him, as if he were his owne. Hee can hold up the loioer salt with
festivall and timely table tallce in competent and commendable sort: and, barre
distinction and orderly speaking, he wd over-argue a schoUer in his owne profession.
— Bich Cabinet furnished with Varietie of Excellent Discriptions, 1616.
Pray y' what of this? where you are best esteem'd,
You only pass under the favourable name
Of humble cozens, that sit below the salt.
Cartwrighf s Siedge, or Love's Convert, 1651.
my proud ladie
Admits him to her table, marry ever
Beneath the salt, and there he sits the subject
Of her contempt and scorn. — Massing ers City Madam, 4to. 1658.
Of the time-aged porter ? He
Who, after reverence, humbly sate
Beloio the salt, and munch'd his sprat,
And after all this to be vex't
Past sufiPerance, by a man o'th' Text ! — Wit and Drollery.
Salt-spoons appear to have been comparatively a modern introduction. In a
very curious list of regulations for behaviour at table, printed as late as 1684, the
reader is told that, in taking salt, he is to take care that his "knife be not greasie,
when it ought to be wiped, or the fork ; one may do it neatly with a little peace of
bread, or, as in certain places, with a napkin, but never with a whole loaf."
^ That word makes the faults gracious.
Gracious, graceful. "Gracyouse, full of grace," Palsgrave, 1530. "There
was not such a gracious creature born," King John. Again, in Albion's Triumph,
1631 : — "On which [the freeze\ went festoons of several fruits in their natural
colours, on which in gracious postures lay children sleeping." Again, in Marston's
Malcontent, 1604, — "hee is the most exquisite in forging of veines, sprightning of
eyes, dying of haire, sleeking of skinnes, blushing of clieekes, surphleing of
breastes, blanching and bleaching of teeth, that ever made an old lady
gratious by torch-light." Steevens's interpretation of the word gracious has been
controverted, but it is right. We have the same sentiment in the Merry Wives of
Windsor:
0, what a world of vile ill-favour'd faults
Look handsome in three hundred pounds a year !
This note is chiefly taken from Steevens and Malone.
NOTES TO THE THIED ACT.
125
A figure trenched in ice.
Trenched in ice, cut, carved in ice; trancher, to cut, Er. — Johnson. So, in
Arden of Eeversliam, 1593: 'Is deeply trenched in my blushing brow.' — Steevens.
"Twenty trenched gashes on his head," Macbeth.
Tahes his going grievously.
That is, heavily, with grief. It is worthy of remark that the second folio reads
heavily, and Malone says some copies of the first folio have the same reading; but
I have some suspicion this is an error, arising perhaps from an imperfect copy
having been made up from the second edition. The booksellers have played innu-
merable tricks with that "triumphantly trading article," the first foHo Shakespeare;
and my conjecture, that some such cause has led to Malone's mistake, is supported
by the other reading he mentions as being on the same page, in that article, which
is also the erroneous reading of the second folio. Three copies of the first folio,
now (1853) in my possession, read grievously.
With circumstance.
""With the addition of such incidental particulars as may induce belief,"
Johnson. "A circumstance, or circuit of words, compasses, or going about the
bush," Minsheu.
Though laureat poets in old antiquity
Eeigned false fables under clowdy sentence,
Yet some intituled fruitful morality,
Some of love wrote great circumstance ;
Some of chivalrous acts made remembrance;
Some as good philosophers naturally indited.
Thus wisely and wittily their time they spended.
Controversy hetioeen a Lover and a Jay, n. d.
Sonne, you might marveile at your entertainement, and repute mee mute, or
simple, to use no more words nor circumstances at my first view of you, but it is
my fashion, as they which know me, know. — The Man in the Moone, 1609.
This to the Ostrich motion'd he agrees.
The wages are set downe, the vailes, the fees.
The livory, with circumstance enough.
Scots Philomythie, 8vo. Lond. 1616.
Eather, you have order to stay the rest; be sententious, and full of circum-
stance, I advise you; and remember this, that more then mortality fights on our
side; for we have treason and iniquity to maintayne our quarrell. — The Tragedy of
Hoffman, 1631.
His very friend.
His true or undoubted friend. Massinger caUs one of his plays, A Very Woman.
Perhaps undoubted is the best explanation of the word as it is used in old plays.
A letter from Sir E. Calton to AUeyn, dated April, 1613, is subscribed, "Your
very frend, Eran. Calton," MS. printed in the Alleyn Papers, p. 56.
A very woman is a dough-bak'd man, or a She, meant well towards man, but
feR two bows short, strength and understanding. Her virtue is the hedge modesty,
that keeps a man from climbing over into her faults. — The Overhury Characters.
Your slander never can endamage him.
"Endamage, damnifico,'" Huloet's Abcedarium, 1553. "To receive enda-
magement, hurt, or damage, detrimentmn accipere" Baret, 1580. "Endam-
mageable, empecil)le" Percivale, 1599. " To endammage, to damnific," Minsheu.
12G
NOTES TO THE THIRD ACT.
^~ But say, this tceed her love from Falentine.
IFeecl, root out, eradicate. I think rapid extirpation was intended, and that it
is to be inferred thus from the previous hnc, "she shall not long conthuie," &c.
The Perkins MS. reads, more tamely, wean, a modernized reading also adopted
in Victor's alteration of the ])lay, 17(33. Compare the Andria of Terence, act ii,
sc. 2. — llidiculum Caput ! Quasi neccsse sit, si Imic non dat, te illam uxoreni
ducere. " O wise woodcocke, as though it must needes follow, if he give not his
daughter to him, that therefore you should marrie her," Bernard's translation, ed.
IGl l, p. 31. This translation appears to be copied from that of Kyflin, published
at London in 1588,
As you tmicind her love from him.
— Go, get you in ;
You shall see me winde my tongue about his heart.
Like a skeine of silke. — Webster s Dutchesse of Malfy, 1623.
To bottom it on me.
Alluding to the process of winding a bottom of thread or ball of thread upon a
cylindrical body. So, in Grange's Garden, 1557, ap. Steevens, "in answer to a
letter ■\\Titten unto him by a curtyzan :"
A bottome for your silke it seemes
My letters are become,
Whiche with oft winding ofP and on
Are wasted whole and some.
" A bottom to wind silk, thread, yarn, &c., foudrillon,''' HoweU's Lex. Tet.
fol. Lond. 1660.
And cannot soon revolt.
That is, make or cause to revolt, — you cannot readily change and make your
mind rebel against Love. So, in North's Plutarch, 1579, — " to conquer Egypt,
and to revolte all the countries upon the sea coastes from the empire of the King
of Persia."
For she is Umpish.
That is, very dull, heavy. " As I drawe the more to lumpishe age," Jocasta,
1566. "Each lumpish asse and dronish noddie," Taylor's Workes, 1630. "What,
Meanewell, why so lumpish," Cartwright's Ordinary, 1651.
Where you may temper her.
" Mould her, like wax, to whatever shape you please. So, in King
Henry lY. Part II. : — I have him already tempering between my finger and my
tlmmb; and shortly will I seal with him." — Malone. The term was anciently
used in the sense of, to correct, to manage.
Some laughed without fayle,
Some sayd, Dame, tempre tliy tayle.
Ye wreste it all amysse. — Frere and the Boye.
You, must lay lime.
Lime, bird-lime. " Lime to take birds with," Baret's Alvearie, 1580 : " missel-
den or birdhme, for birdlime is made of the beries thereof," ibid. " Lyme for
])yrdes," Huloet.
Over heo bylevith in folic.
So in the lym doth the flye. — Kyng Alisaunder.
NOTES TO THE TIIIED ACT.
127
That may discover such integrity.
That is, frame or compose some line or poem, fraught with so great sensibility,
that it will in itself disclose the honesty and sincerity of your passion.
For Orplieui lute was strung with poet's sinews.
Upon a harp whose strings none other be,
Than of the heart of chaste Penelope. — Inner Temple Masque.
With some sweet consort.
^^Concento, a consort, or concordance in musick," Elorio's "Worlde of "Wordes,
1598. The modern term is concert, and the present word must not be confused
with consort, as it occurs in the next scene, as it there merely means a company,
without any reference to music. "A consort, in musick, concentus, harmonia,"
Coles. One of Churchyard's tracts, 1595, is entitled, — " A Musicall Consort of
Heavenly Harmonic, compounded out of manie parts of musicke." A musical
consort was the harmony arising from two or more musical instruments, not
necessarily what is now implied by the term, as two or three would have been
sufficient to authorize its use ; although, in many cases, as in the text, we have
the word applied to any company of musicians. "A consort is many musitians
playing on several instruments together," Holme's Acad. Arm. iii., 160 ; and
Massinger, in his Eatal Dowry, 1632, seems to apply the term to a single musician.
A physition being askt his opinion of musitions : said, sixe were a consorte ;
five musitions, foure fidlers, and three rogues. — Copley s TFits, Fits, and Fancies,
1614. — A poore knight of small revenue retain'd a consort of viols in his house,
and asking at dinner time a gentleman, a guest of his, how he liked of his
musicke ? He answered, They play well, onely they want dauncers. — Ibid.
Some of your old companions have brought you a fit of mirth. But if they enter
to make a tavern of my house, I'll add a voice to their consort shall drown all
their fidling. What are they ? Pa. Some that come in gentile fashion to
present a mask. — Bronte's Northern Lass.
May it please your Majesty to command that some moneys may be
assigned to me to provide me with instruments that 1 may be heard to
play in the consort, there will not be a lord in the court that will not
follow your example. — Comical History of Francion, 1655.
1 had rather hear a broken consort in my hogyard : my bores and sows grunt
out harmonious bases, my hogs sing out their brisker countenours, my sweet
voic'd pigs squeak out melodious trebles. — Bell. What tliink you of a consort of
cathedral voices ? — The Woman Captwin, 1680.
^'^ Tune a deploring dump.
Numerous specimens of the dump, a kind of music suited to melancholy
occasions, are preserved in early manuscripts, the one here given in facsimile being
My Lady Carey s dompe, from a MS. temp. Hen. VIIL, Bibl. Reg. Append. 58.
"Queen Maries dump" is preserved in Ballet's Lute-Book at Dublin; and "the
Irishe dump" in Queen Elizabeth's Virginal-Book in the Eitzwilliam Museum at
Cambridge. Further observations on the dump will be found in the notes to
Eomeo and Juliet.
Methinks I heare Apollo graunt
Melodiously for to devise.
And Venus bid Minerva vaunt,
So that no dolcfnll dumpcs may rise :
The ]\Iuses likewise (graunting ayde),
Do bid strike up, thus none denayde. — Grange's Garden, 1577.
12S
NOTES TO THE TEIED ACT.
Dr. Himbaiilt has kindly favored me witli the following observations on tlie
subject : — " I do not find any specimen of the dump so characteristic as 'My Lady
Carey's Dompe.' The MS. contains two other specimens of the dump, — the 'Power
Manes doumpe,' f. 53, and ' the Duke of Somersettes Dompe,' f. 49. Eoth these
tunes are for the lute. Lady Carey's dump, being for the virginals, is much more
l)erfect in the harmony. The copy of this dump, given by Steevens, consists of the
tirst portion only, thirty-three bars out of sixty-five. The peculiar features of the
dump require the whole tune to be given, before we can judge of it. The slow
character of the commencement, followed by the instrumental division ; the return
to the opening subject at the end ; and the recurrence, over and over again, of the
ground-bass upon which the air is constructed, are all characteristics of the
deploring dump''
Will inherit her.
That is, will obtain possession of her. The word occurs in a similar sense in
Titus Andronicus, act ii., and in Eomeo and Juliet, act i. " This sense of the
word," observes Steevens, "was not wholly disused in the time of Milton, who, in
his Comtis, has — disinherit Chaos, meaning only, dispossess it."
To sort.
To choose or select. So, in 3 Henry VI., act v., "I will sort a pitchy day
for thee;" and Richard III., act ii., " I'll sort occasion." Compare, also, the Spanish
Tragedy, 1603, — "for they had sorted leisure;" Ford's Lover's Melancholy, 1629, —
"we shall sort time to take more notice of him;" Chapman, — "that he may sort
her out a worthy spouse;" and the Rape of Lucrece, — "when wilt thou sort an
hour great strifes to end?"
/ will pardon you.
A conventional phrase. The Duke excuses their further attendance.
SCENE I. — A Forest near Mantua.
Enter certain Outlaws.
1 Out. Fellows, stand fast; I see a passenger.
2 Out. If there be ten, shrink not, but down with 'em.
Enter Valentine and Speed.
3 Out. Stand, sir, and throw us that you have about you;
If not, we '11 make you sit,^ and rifle you.
Speed. Sir, we are undone! these are the villains
That all the travellers do fear so much.
F^al. My friends, —
1 Out. That's not so, sir; we are your enemies.
2 Out. Peace! we '11 hear him.
3 Out. Ay, by my beard, will we ; for he is a proper man
F^al. Then know, that I have little wealth to lose;
A man I am cross' d with adversity;
My riches are these poor habiliments.
Of which if you should here disfurnish me,
You take the sum and substance that I have.
2 Out. Whither travel you?
F^al. To Verona.
1 Out. Whence came you?
Fal. From Milan.
ir. 17
130
THE TWO GENTLEMEN OE VERONA, [act iv. sc. i.
3 Otft. Have you long sojourn'd there?
/7//. Some sixteen months; and longer might have stay'd,
If erooked fortune had not thwarted me.
1 Out. What, were you hanish'd thenee ?
J nl. I Avas.
2 Out. For w^iat offence?
Val. For that which now torments me to rehearse:
I kiird a man, whose death I much repent;
But yet I slew him manfully in fight.
Without false vantage, or base treachery.
1 Old. Why, ne'er repent it, if it were done so;
But were you banish'd for so small a fault?
Val. I was, and held me glad of such a doom.
1 Old. Have you. the tongues?^
Val. My youthful travel therein made me happy;
Or else I often had been often miserable.*
3 Old. By the bare scalp of Robin Hood's fat friar,^
This fellow were a king for our wild faction!
1 Old. We '11 have him; sirs, a word.
Speed, blaster, be one of them; 't is an honourable kind of
thievery.
Val. Peace, villain.
2 Old. Tell us this : Have you anything to take to?
Val. Nothing but my fortune.
3 Old. Know then, that some of us are gentlemen,
Such as the fury of ungovern'd youth.
Thrust from the company of aw ful men -.^
JMyself was from Verona banished.
For practising to steal away a lady,
An heir, and near allied unto the duke.^
2 Old. And I from INIantua, for a gentleman.
Who, in my mood,^ I stabb'd unto the heart.
1 Old. And I, for such like petty crimes as these.
But to the purpose, — for w e cite our faults.
That they may hold excus'd our lawless lives.
And, partly, seeing you are beautified
W^ith goodly shape ; and, by your own report,
A linguist ; and a man of such perfection.
As we do in our quality much want.^
2 Out. Indeed, because you are a banish'd man.
Therefore, above the rest, avc parley to you:
Are you content to be our general ?
ACTiv. sc. u.] TEE TWO GENTLEMEN OE VERONA.
To make a virtue of necessity /°
And live, as we do, in this wilderness?
3 Out. What say'st thou? wilt thou be of our consort?'^
Say *ay' and be the captain of us all \
We '11 do thee homage, and be rul'd by thee,
Love thee as our commander, and our king.
1 Out. But if thou scorn our courtesy, thou diest.
2 Out. Thou shalt not live to brag what we have ofFer'd.
Val. I take your offer, and will live with you.
Provided that you do no outrages
On silly women, or poor passengers.
3 Out. No, we detest such vile base practices.
Come, go with us, we'll bring thee to our crews,^*
And show thee all the treasure we have got;
Which, with ourselves, all rest at thy dispose. [Exeunt.
SCENE IL— Milan. The Court of the Palace.
Enter Proteus.
Pro. Already have I been false to Valentine,
And now I must be as unjvist to Tliurio.
Under the colour of commending him,
I have access my own love to prefer;
But Silvia is too fair, too true, too holy.
To be corrupted with my worthless gifts.
When I protest true loyalty to her.
She twits me with my falsehood to my friend:
When to her beauty I commend my vows,
She bids me think how I have been forsworn
In breaking faith with Julia whom I lov'd:
And, notwithstanding all her sudden quips,^^
The least whereof would quell a lover's hope.
Yet, spaniel-like, the more she spurns my love.
The more it grows, and fawneth on her still.
But here comes Thurio: now must we to her window.
And give some evening music to her ear.^^
Enter Thurio and Musicians.
Thu. How now, sir Proteus; are you crept before us.""
Pro. Ay, gentle Thurio; for you know that love
WiU creep in service, where it cannot go.
132
THE TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA, [act iv. sc. ir.
Thu. Ay, but I hope, sir, that you love not here.
Pro. Sir, but I do ; or else I would be henee.
Thu. \Vlio? Silvia?
Pro. Ay, Silvia, — for your sake.
Thu. I thank you for your own. Now, gentlemen,
Let 's tune, and to it lustily awhile.
Enter Host, at a distance; and Julia in hoys clothes.
Host. Now, my young guest! methinks you 're allichoUy I
pray you, why is it?
Jul. Marry, mine host, because I cannot be merry.
Host. Come, we '11 have you merry : I '11 bring you where you
shall hear music, and see the gentleman that you ask'd for.
Jnl. But shall I hear him speak?
Host. Ay, that you shall.
Jul. That will be music!^^ [Music plays.
Host. Hark! hark!
Jul. Is he among these?
Host. Ay : but peace, let 's hear 'em.
SONG.
"Who is Silvia ? what is she,
That all our swains commend her ?
Holy, fair, and wise is slie,^"
The heaven such grace did lend her,^^
That she might admired be.
Is she kind as she is fair ?
Eor beauty lives with kindness
Love doth to her eyes repair.
To help him of his blindness ;
And, being help'd, inhabits there.
Then to Silvia let us sing.
That Silvia is excelling;
She excels each mortal thing,
Upon the dull earth dwelling
To her let us garlands bring.
Host. How now? are you sadder than you were before? How
do you, man? the music likes you not.^*
/ ul. You mistake ! the musician likes me not.
Host. Why, my pretty youth ?
Jul. He plays false, father.
Host. How ? out of tune on the strings ?
Jul. Not so ! but yet so false that he grieves my very heart-
strings.
ACT IV. sc. II.] THE TWO GENTLEMEN OP VEEONA.
133
Host. You hav^ a quick ear.
Jul. Ay, I would I were deaf! it makes me have a slow
heart.
Host. I perceive you delight not in music.
Jul. Not a whit, when it jars so.
Host. Hark, what fine change is in the music !
Jul. Ay, that change is the spite.
Host. You would have them always play but one thing.
Jul. I would always have one play but one thing. But, host,
doth this sir Proteus, that we talk on, often resort unto this
gentlewoman ?
Host. I tell you what Launce, his man, told me, he loved her
out of all nick.'^
Jul. Where is Launce ?
Host. Gone to seek his dog; which, to-morrow, by his
master's command, he must carry for a present to his lady.
Jul. Peace ! stand aside ! the company parts.
Pro. Sir Thurio, fear not you! I will so plead.
That you shall say my cunning drift excels.
Thu. Where meet we?
Pro. At Saint Gregory's well/^
Thu. Farewell. \_Exeimt Thurio and Musicians.
Silvia appears above, at her windoiv.
Pro. Madam, good even to your ladyship.
Sit. I thank you for your music, gentlemen :
Who is that, that spake ?
Pro. One, lady, if you kncAV his pure heart's truth.
You would quickly learn to know him by his voice.
Sil. Sir Proteus, as I take it.
Pro. Sir Proteus, gentle lady, and your servant.
Sil. Wliat 's your will.
Pro. That I may compass yours.
Sil. You have your wish ; my will is even this, —
That presently you hie you home to bed, —
Thou subtle, perjur'd, false, disloyal man!
Think'st thou, I am so shallow, so conceitless,"^
To be seduced by thy flattery.
That hast deceiv'd so many with thy vows ?
Return, return, and make thy love amends.
For me, — by this pale queen of night I swear,
I am so far from granting thy request,
134)
THE TAYO GENTLEMEN OE VEEONA. [act iv. sc. ii.
That I despise tliee for tlij wrongful suit;
And by and by intend to chide myself,
Even for this time I spend in talking to thee.
Pro. I grant, sweet love, that I did love a lady
But she is dead.
Jul. 'T were false, if I shoidd speak it;
For I am sure she is not buried. [Aside.
Sil. Say that she be ; yet Valentine, thy friend,
Survives ; to whom, thyself art witness'"
I am betroth'd : And art thou not asham'd
To wrong him with thy importunacy?
Pro. I likewise hear that Valentine is dead.
Sil. And so suppose am T; for in his grave^°
Assure thyself my love is buried.
Pro. Sweet lady, let me rake it from the earth.
Sil. Go to thy lady's grave, and eall her's thence ;
Or, at the least, in her's sepulchre thine.
Jul. He heard not that. [Aside.
Pro. Madam, if your heart be so obdurate,
Vouchsafe me yet your picture for my love.
The picture that is hanging in your chamber;
To that I '11 speak, to tliat I '11 sigh and weep :
For, since the substance of your perfect self
Is else devoted, I am but a shadow, —
And to your shadow will I make true love.
Jid. If 't were a substance, you would, sure, deceive it,
And make it but a shadow, as I am. [Aside.
Sil. I am very loth to be your idol, sir;
But, since your falsehood shall become you well
To worship shadows, and adore false shapes.
Send to me in the morning, and I '11 send it:
And so, good rest.
Pro. As wretches have o'er night.
That wait for execution in the morn.
[Exeunt Proteus, and Silvia yro?/« above.
Jul. Host, will you go?
Host. By my halidom,^' I was fast asleep.
Jul. Pray you, where lies sir Proteus?
Host. Marry, at my house : Trust me, I think, 't is almost
day.
Jul. Not so ; but it hath been the longest night
That e'er I watch'd, and the most heaviest. [Exeunt.
ACT IV. SC. III.] THE TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA.
SCENE III. — The same, under Silvia's window.
Enter Eglamour.
Egl. This is the hour that Madam Silvia
Entreated me to call, and know her mind;
There 's some great matter she 'd employ me in. —
Madam, madam !
Silvia appears above, at her window.
Sil. Who calls?
Egl. Your servant, and your friend;
One that attends your ladyship's command.
Sil. Sir Eglamour, a thousand times good-morrow.
Egl. As many, wortliy lady, to yourself.
According to your ladyship's impose,^^
I am thus early come, to know what service
It is your pleasure to command me in.
Sil. O Eglamour, thou art a gentleman,
(Think not I flatter, for I swear I do not,)
Valiant, wise, remorseful,^^ well accomplish'd.
Thou art not ignorant what dear good will
I hear unto the banish'd Valentine ;
Nor how my father would enforce me marry
Vain Thurio, whom my very soul abhorr'd.
Thyself hast lov'd ; and I have heard thee say.
No grief did ever come so near thy heart
As when thy lady and thy true love died.
Upon whose grave thou vow'dst pure chastity.^'
Sir Eglamour, I would to Valentine,
To Mantua, where, I hear, he makes abode ;
And, for the ways are dangerous to pass,
I do desire thy worthy company,
Upon Avhose faith and honour I repose.
Urge not my father's anger, Eglamour,
But think upon my grief, a lady's grief, —
And on the justice of my flying hence.
To keep me from a most unholy match.
Which Heaven and fortune still reward with plagues :
I do desire thee, even from a heart
As full of sorrows as the sea of sands,
13C THE TWO GENTLEMEN OE VERONA, [act iv. sc. iv.
To bear me company, and go with me :
It' not, to hide what I have said to thee,
That I may venture to depart alone.
Effl. ]\Iadam, I pity mueh your grievances -^'^
Which since I know they virtuously are plac'd,
I give consent to go along with you;
Recking as little w hat hetideth me,^'
As much I w isli all good befortune you.
When will you go ?
Sil. This evening coming.
Egl. Where shall I meet you ?
Sil. At friar Patrick's cell,
Where I intend holy confession.
EgJ. I will not fail your ladyship:
Good morrow^ gentle lady.
Sil. Good morrow, kind sir Eglamour.
SCENE The Court of the Palace.
Enter Launce loith his dog.
Laimce. When a man's servant shall play the cur with him,
look you, it goes hard: one that I brought up of a puppy; one
that 1 sav'd from drowning, when three or four of his blind
brothers and sisters went to it! I have taught him — even as one
would say precisely, Thus I would teach a dog. I was sent to
deliver him, as a present to mistress Silvia, from my master;
and I came no sooner into the dining-chamber, but he steps me
to her trencher,^^ and steals her capon's leg. O, 't is a foul
thing when a cur cannot keep himself in all companies ! I would
have, as one should say, one that takes upon him to be a dog
indeed, to be, as it were, a dog^^ at all things. If I had not
had more wit than he, to take a fault upon me that he did, I
think verily he had been hanged for 't; sure as I live he had
suffered for 't: you shall judge. lie thrusts me himself into the
company of three or four gentlemanlike dogs, under the duke's
table: he had not been there (bless the mark!) a pissingwhile,*''
but all the chamber smelt him. 'Out with the dog,' says one;
'W^hat cur is that?' says another; 'Whip him out,' says the third;
'Ilang him up,' says the duke. I, having been acquainted with
the smell before, knew it was Crab; and goes me to the fellow
that whips the dogs:" 'Friend,' quoth I, 'you mean to whip the
[Exeunt
ACT IV. sc. IV.] THE TWO GENTLEMEN OE VEEONA.
137
*dog?' 'Ay, marry, do I,' quoth he 'You do him the more
wrong,' quoth I; * 't was I did the thing you wot of.'*^ He makes
me no more ado,*^ but whips me out of the chamber. How
many masters would do this for his servant? Nay, I '11 be
sworn, I have sat in the stocks for puddings he hath stol'n,
otherwise he had been executed : I have stood on the pillory**
for geese he hath kill'd, otherwise he had suffered for 't: thou
think'st not of this now! — Nay, I remember the trick you
serv'd me when I took my leave of madam Silvia;^'' did not I
bid thee still mark me, and do as I do? When didst thou see
me heave up my leg, and make water against a gentlewoman's
farthingale? didst thou ever see me do such a trick?
Enter Proteus and Julia.
Pro. Sebastian is thy name? I like thee well.
And will employ thee in some service presently.
Jul. In what you please. — I '11 do what I can.*^
Pro. I hope thou wilt. — How now, you whoreson peasant;
Where have you been these two days loitering? [To Launce.
Laun. Marry, sir, I carried mistress Silvia the dog you
bade me.
Pro. And what says she to my little jewel?
Laun. Marry, she says, your dog was a cur; and tells you,
currish thanks is good enough for such a present.
Pro. But she receiv'd my dog?
Laun. No, indeed, did she not: here have I brought him
back again.
Pro. What, didst thou offer her this from me?*'^
Laun. Ay, sir; the other squirrel*^ was stol'n from me by
the hangman's boys in the market-place : and then I offer'd her
mine own, who is a dog as big as ten of yours, and therefore
the gift the greater.
Pro. Go, get thee hence, and find my dog again,
Or ne'er return again into my sight.
Away, I say: Stayest thou to vex me here?
A slave, that, still an end,*^ turns me to shame. [Exit Launce.
Sebastian, I have entertained thee.
Partly, that I have need of such a youth,
That can with some discretion do my business, —
For 't is no trusting to yon foolish lout, —
But, chiefly, for thy face and thy behaviour.
Which (if my augury deceive me not)
II. * 18
138
THE TWO GENTLEMEN OF VEEONA. [act iv. sc. iv.
Witness good bringing up, fortune, and truth;
Therefore know thee, for this I entertain thee.
Go presently, and take this ring with thee,
Dehver it to madam Silvia:
She lov'd me well, delivered it to me.^°
Jul. It seems you lov'd not her to leave her token
She is dead, belike
Pro. Not so; I think she lives.
Jul. Alas!
Pro. Why dost thou cry, alas!
Jul. I cannot choose but pity her.
Pro. Wherefore shouldst thou pity her?
Jul. Because, methinks, that she lov'd you as well
As you do love your lady Silvia:
She dreams on him that has forgot her love;^^
You dote on her that cares not for your love.
'T is pity love should be so contrary.
And thinking on it makes me cry, alas!
Pro. Well, give her that ring, and therewithal
This letter; — that 's her chamber. — Tell my lady,
I claim the promise for her heavenly picture.
Your message done, hie home unto my chamber,
Where thou shalt find me, sad and solitary. [_Exit Proteus.
Jul. How many women would do such a message?
Alas, poor Proteus! thou hast entertain'd
A fox, to be the shepherd of thy lambs:
Alas, poor fool! why do I pity him.
That with his very heart despiseth me?
Because he loves her, he despiseth me;
Because I love him, I must pity him.
This ring I gave him, when he parted from me.
To bind him to remember my good will :
And now am I (unhappy messenger)
To plead for that, which I would not obtain;^*
To carry that, which I would have refus'd ;
To praise his faith, " which I w ould have disprais'd.
I am my master's true confirmed love.
But cannot be true servant to my master.
Unless I prove false traitor to myself.
Yet will I woo for him, — but yet so coldly,
As, Heaven it knows, I would not have him speed!
ACT IV. sc. rv.] THE TWO GENTLEMEN OF YEEONA. 139
Enter Silvia, attended.
Gentlewoman, good day! I pray you, be my mean
To bring me where to speak with madam Silvia.
Sil, What would you with her, if that I be she?
Jul. If you be she, I do entreat your patience
To hear me speak the message I am sent on.
Sil. From whom?
Jul. From my master, sir Proteus, madam.
Sil. O! — ^lie sends you for a picture?
Jul. Ay, madam.
Sil. Ursula, bring my picture there. [^Picture brought.
Go, give your master this: tell him, from me.
One Julia, that his changing thoughts forget,
Would better fit his chamber, than this shadow.
Jul. Madam, please you peruse this letter. —
Pardon me, madam; I have unadvis'd
Deliver'd you a paper that I should not:
This is the letter to your ladyship.
Sil. I pray thee, let me look on that again.
Jid. It may not be; good madam, pardon me.
Sil. There, hold!
I wiU not look upon your master's lines :
I know they are stuff'd with protestations.
And full of new-found oaths, which he will break
As easily as I do tear his paper.
Jul. Madam, he sends your ladyship this ring.
Sil. The more shame for him that he sends it me;
For, I have heard him say a thousand times.
His Julia gave it him at his departure:
Though his false finger have profan'd the ring,
Mine shall not do his Julia so much wrong.
Jul. She thanks you.
Sd. What say'st thou?
Jul. I thank you, madam, that you tender her:
Poor gentlewoman! my master wrongs her much.
Sil. Dost thou know her?
Almost as well as I do know myself:
To thhik upon her woes I do protest
That I have wept a hundred several times.
Sil. Belike, she thinks that Proteus hath forsook her.
Jul. I think she doth, and that 's her cause of sorrow.
uo
THE TWO GENTLEMEN OE VEHONA. [act iv. sc. iv.
Sil. Is she not passing fair?
Jul. She hath heen fairer, madam, than she is:
Allien she did think my master lov'd her well,
She, in my judgment, was as fair as yon;
But since she did neglect her looking-glass,^''
And threw her sun-expelling mask away,
The air hath starv'd the roses in her cheeks,
And pinch'd the lily-tincture of her face,"
That now she is hecome as hlack as I.
Sil. How tall was she?''
Jul. Ahout my stature:'" for, at Pentecost,
^Yllen all our pageants of delight were play'd.
Our youth got me to play the woman's part.
And I was trimm'd in madam Julia's gown;
Which served me as fit, by all men's judgments.
As if the garment had been made for me:
Therefore, I know she is about my height.
And, at that time, I made her weep a-good,^*^
For I did play a lamentable part;
Madam, 't was Ariadne, passioning''^
For Theseus' perjury and unjust flight, —
Which I so lively acted with my tears.
That my poor mistress, moved therewithal.
Wept bitterly; and, would I might be dead.
If I in thought felt not her very sorrow!
Sil. She is beholden to thee, gentle youth! —
Alas, poor lady! desolate and left! —
I weep myself to think upon thy words.
Here, youth, there is my purse; I give thee this
For thy sweet mistress' sake, because thou lov'st her.
Farewell. [Exit Silvia,
Jul. And she shall thank you for't, if e'er you know her.
A virtuous gentlewoman, mild and beautiful.
I hope my master's suit will be but cold,"^
Since she respects my mistress' love so much."'^
Alas, how love can trifle with itself !
Here is her picture: Let me see; I think.
If I had such a tire, this face of mine
Were full as lovely as is this of hers:
And yet the painter flatter'd her a little,
Unless I flatter with myself too much.
Her hair is auburn, mine is j^erfect yellow:^*
ACT IV. SC. IV.] THE TWO GENTLEMEN OF VEEONA.
141
If that be all the difference in his love,
I '11 get me such a colour'd periwig.*'^
Her eyes are grey as glass and so are mine:
Ay, but her forehead 's low/^ and mine 's as high.
What should it be, that he respects in her,
But I can make respective in myself,*'^
If this fond love were not a blinded god?
Come, shadow, come, and take this shadow up.
For 't is thy rival. O thou senseless form,
Thou shalt be worshipp'd, kiss'd, lov'd, and ador'd;
And, were there sense in his idolatry,
My substance should be statue*^^ in thy stead.
I 'll use thee kindly for thy mistress' sake,
That us'd me so; or else, by Jove I vow,
I should have scratch'd out your unseeing eyes,^°
To make my master out of love with thee ! [Exit.
^$(fk^ to i\t Jfoiirtl
The third edition reads sir, altered in Mr.
See observations on this use of the
^ JFe HI make you sit.
So the first and second foho.
Whaler's annotated copy to sure.
^ For he is a proper man.
Proper, well- shaped, elegant in figure,
word in the notes to Twelfth Night.
^ Have you the tongues ?
That is, are you skilled in languages ?
* Or else I often had heen often miserable.
The repetition of the adverb occurs in the first folio, and is probably the
author's own language, though invariably altered by modern editors. A similar
iteration occurs in a line in Henry YIII., act ii., — " is only bitter to him, only
dying."
^ By the hare scalp of Robin Hood's fat friar.
It was usual to swear by E,obin Hood, or
by some of his companions. " Marry, said the
other, I will bring the mover this bridge. By
Robin Hood, said he that came from Notting-
ham, but thou shalt not. By Maid Marrion,
said he that was going thitherward, but I
will," Merry Tales of the Mad-men of Gottam.
"By the armes of Bobyn Hood," Jacke Jugeler,
n. d. The fat friar, it is scarcely necessary to
say, is Eriar Tuck, so distinguished a personage
of the Eobin Hood ballads; and the woodcut
here given is taken from one of them, preserved
in the Eoxburghe collection in the British
Museum, printed in black-letter in the seven-
teenth century. Thus Drayton, —
Of Tuck, the merry friar, which many a sermon made
In praise of Eobin Hoode, his outlawes, and his trade.
THE
Curtal Fryer.
144
NOTES TO THE EOUETII ACT.
And Skelton, in the play of Magnificence, —
Another bade shave halfe my berde,
And boyes to the pylery gan me phicke,
And wohle have made me freer Tucke,
To preche oute of the pylery hole.
It would answer no useful purpose
to insert here any collection of notices of
these mythological personages, but, in
illustration of the hue in the text, it may
not be thought irrelevant to refer to
the remarkable early painted window,
so constantly mentioned by all writers
on the morris-dance, which includes
(3) a representation of the friar. "Friar
Tuck," says Douce, " is known to have
formed one of the characters in the
May games during the reign of Henry
the Eighth, and had been probably in-
troduced into them at a much earlier
period. Prom the occurrence of this
name on other occasions, there is good
reason for supposing that it was a sort
of generic appellation for any friar, and
that it originated from the dress of the
order, which was tucked or folded at
the waist by means of a cord or girdle.
Thus Chaucer, in his prologue to the
Canterbury Tales, says of the Reve, —
' Tucked he was, as is a frere aboute;'
and he describes one of the friars in
the Sompnour's Tale, ' with scrippe and
tipped staflP, y-tucked hie.'" He is
mentioned by Peele in 1593, but he
appears to have disappeared shortly
afterwards from amongst the charac-
ters of the morris-dance. Eriar Tuck
is thus made to describe himself in the Playe of Eobyn Hode, n. d., —
But am not I a jolly fryer?
Por I can shote both farre and nere.
And handle the sworde and buckler,
And this quarter-staffe also.
If I mete with a gentylman or yeman,
I am not afrayde to loke hym upon,
Nor boldely with him to carpe ;
If he speake any wordes to me,
He shall have strypes two or thre.
That shal make his body smarte.
^ Thrust from the company of awful men.
Shakespeare in this, and two othet passages, appears to use aicful in the
sense of laicful, or rather, perhaps, in the provincial sense mentioned by Johnson,
reverend, worshipful. According to another critic, " an awful man is to this day
NOTES TO THE FOURTH ACT.
145
used in the North to denote a man of dignity : I once heard an accomplished
young lady from the North, on being asked by a clergyman, in a large company, to re-
cite some verses, make answer that she could not do it before so av^ful a man." The
term seems to occur in a similar sense in Webster's Works, ed. Dyce, i. 31, — "neglect
your awful throne for the soft down of an insatiate bed ;" and again in Chapman's
Revenge for Honour, 1654, — "whatere your awful wil, sir, shall determine."
" 1 believe we should read laivful men, i. e. legales homines. So, in the Newe
Boke of Justices, 1560 : — commaundinge him to the same to make an inquest and
pannel of lawful men of his countie." — Farmer.
An heir, and near allied unto the duJce.
The first folio reads, ''And heire and Neece, alide vnto the Duke ;" and the
third folio has, "An heir, and Neice allide unto the Duke." The alteration in the
text was suggested by Theobald. If the original text be preserved, the word niece
must refer to the speaker, the lady being in that case his own relative, and the
purpose of marriage not being necessarily implied. One annotated copy reads,
"an heiress, near allied unto the duke."
^ In my mood.
Mood, without an adjective, is sometimes used in the sense of anger or
resentment ; as in the following instance.
But only to the poste,
Wherto I cleve and shall,
Whyche is thy mercye moste ?
Lord let thy mercye fall,
And mytygate thy moode.
Or els we peryshe all !
The pryce of thys thy bloode,
Wherin mercye 1 calle ! — MS. Poems, temp. Eliz.
The bishop he came to the old woman's house,
And called with a furious mood:
Come let me see, and bring unto me
That traytor Robin Hood. — Bohin Hood and the Bishop.
® As we do in our quality much want.
Quality, profession, occupation. Chettle, speaking in regret of Shakespeare
having been unfairly accused, says, — "I am as sorry as if the original fault had
been my fault ; because my selfe have seen his demeanour no less civil than he
excellent in the qualitie he professes." Shakespeare uses the term several times in
the same sense.
To make a virtue of necessity.
In suche thynges as wee can not flee.
But neades they must abydden bee.
Let contentashyn be decree.
Make vertue of nessessytee. — MS. Ballad, temp. Eliz.
Wilt tliou he of our consort?
And lastly sorted with her damn'd consorts,
Entred a laborinth to myrther love.
Loolce about Yon, 4to. Lond. IGOO.
Shrill trumpets sound amidst those thick consorts,
And summon them to those propounded sports.
Virgil, translated hy Vicars, 1632.
NOTES TO THE EOURTII ACT.
Say 'ffy,' (Did he the captam of m all.
Some of tlie incidents in this play, observes Steevcns, may be supposed to have
been taken from the Arcadia, where Pyroclcs consents to head the Helots. He
refers to the present scene, but incidents of this kind are so common in early
narratives and romances, there docs not appear to be sufficient grounds for
believing that Shakespeare had recom-se, in this instance, to Sidney's celebrated
work.
On silly women, or poor passengers.
This, as Steevens observes, was one of the rules of Robin Hood's government ;
and, in fact, it was the characteristic of all romantic outlawry. Silly, harmless,
simple. Joy, in his Exposition of Daniel, 1545, speaks of "Christes poore sely
lombes." Palsgrave, 1530, has, " sely, or fearfull," and, "sely, wretched."
This sacred service to a sillie dame
Shall be ingraven in tables of my heart.
JFarres of Cyrus King of Persia, 1594.
It is the manner of cowards to carrie weapons, and fight with silly women, in
an open and desart fielde, where none is able to defend them but their vertue and
honest reasons. — Diana of George of Montemayor, 1598.
How happy is he borne or taught,
That serveth not another's will ;
Whose armor is his honest thought,
And silly Truth his highest skill.
Overhurys New and Choise Characters, 1615.
We'll bring thee to our crews.
It is evident only a small number of the outlaws were intended to be on the
stage, I should think not more than three, the second outlaw speaking, in tone of
great defiance, of attacking eve?i ten passengers. On the supposition that the
" crews " were present on the stage, the Perkins MS. proposes to read cave.
Notwithstanding all her sudden quips.
That is, hasty passionate reproaches and scoffs. So Macbeth is, in a kindred
sense, said to be sudden ; that is, irascible and impetuous. The same expression is
used by Dr. Wilson in his Arte of Rhetorique, 1558: — " and make him at liis wit's
end through the sudden quipr (Prom Johnson and Malone).
Manes. — We cynickes are madde feUowes ; dids't thou not finde I did quip
thee? Psyllus. — No, verely; why, what's a quip? Manes. — We great girders
call it a short saying of a sharp wit, with a bitter sense in a sweet word. —
Alexander and Campaspe, 1591.
And give some evening music to her ear.
Barclay, in his translation of the Ship of Eooles, 1570, has some significant
verses against the practice of serenading, "of night watcliers and beters of the
stretes, playing by night on instrumentes, and using like follies, when time
is to reste," —
He is a foole that wandreth by night
In fielde or towne, in company or alone.
Playing at his lemmans doore withouten light.
Till all his body be colde as leade or stone:
These fooles knocking till the night be gone,
At that season, though that they feele no colde.
Shall it repent and feele when they be olde.
NOTES TO THE EOURTH ACT.
147
The curious satirical woodcut, here annexed, which is taken from the same
work, furnishes a good idea of a group of serenaders, as they may he
supposed to be playing
under the window, not of
Silvia, but of some lady
who was averse to the
entertainment, and throws
a bason of water upon their
heads. The engraving,
however, is a good con-
temporary illustration of
the 2)ractice of serenading.
^"^ Will creep in ser-
vice where it cannot go.
"Love will creep where
it cannot go," Eay's Col-
lection of English Pro-
verbs, ed. 1678, p. 54
There is another proverb,
a Scotch one, of similar
import, — " Kindness will
creep where it may not
gang," ib., p. 381. " Kind-
nes wd creep where it
cannot go," Camden's Ee-
maines, ed. 1629, p. 269.
The same proverb occurs
in the collection of Pro-
verbs by N. E., 12mo.
Lond., 1659, p. 71 ; and in Codrington's Collection, 1685, p. 113.
Me thinks you're allicholly.
This vulgar corruption of melancholy again occurs in the Merry Wives of
Windsor. " The reason Julia looked so very melancholy was, that she did not well
know what Proteus would think of the imprudent step she had taken ; for she
knew he had loved her for her noble maiden pride and dignity of character, and
she feared she should lower herself in his esteem ; and this it was that made her
wear a sad and thoughtful countenance." — C. Lamb.
That will he music. -
So, in the Comedy of Errors, — "When every word was music to mine
ear." — Malone.
~^ Holy, fair, and wise is she.
The Perkins MS. reads wise as free, but surely unnecessarily, the laxity of
Elizabethan rhymes being proverbial. Nothing is more common than the mere
repetition of the personal pronoun being considered a sufficient rhyme. An
instance has already occurred in the third act of the present drama, and another is
found in the Tempest, —
Hourly joys be still upon you,
Juno sings her blessings on you.
Steevens, Monck Mason, and other critics, have altered passages in Shakespeare on
NOTES TO THE EOURTH ACT.
account of supposed corruptions, wlicre the rhymes arc not suited to modem
notions. These corruptions are entirely imaginary, such licences solely belong-
ing, and to be referred, to the literature of the period.
Such grace did lend her.
Lend in this, and in several other passages, is used in the archaic sense,
to give. (A. S.)
So buxom, blithe, and full of face,
As heaven had lent her all his grace. — Pericles.
Then Robin Hood lent the stranger a blow.
Most scared him out of his wits ;
Thou never felt blow, the stranger he said,
That shall be better quits.
Ballad of Bohin Hood and his Cousin Scarlet.
For heauty lives loith hindness.
''Beauty without kindness dies unenjoyed and undelighting," Johnson. So
Withers, ap. Malone, —
If she be not fair for me,
What care I how fair she be.
Upon the dull earth dwelling.
So, in Venus and Adonis, — " looks on the dull earth with disturbed mind."
The onusic lihes you not.
Lihes, pleases. So, in the curious old metrical tale of King Edward and the
Shepherd, —
What so thai have it may be myne,
Corne and brede, ale and wyne,
And alle that may like me.
and Ben Jonson, Every Man out of his Humor, 1600, —
I did but cast an amorous eye e'en now
Upon a paire of gloves that somwhat liht me.
Fish delights, and pleaseth me very much, but yet I like not that it helpes but
a little, and hurts much : if there were some rule or way set downe how to use it
without any hurt but for good, surely it would lihe me well, even as it pleaseth my
taste mervailous well, — The Passenger of Benvemito, 1612.
My name is Lancelot du Lake.
Quoth she, It likes me then;
Here dwells a knight that never was
E're match'd with any man. — Ballad of King Arthur.
He loved her out of all nick.
That is, beyond aU reckoning ; a phrase derived from the ancient mode of
computation with tallies. An instance occurs in the Workes of Taylor the
Water-Poet, 1630. There is another expression of a similar kind — in the nick^
conveniently. Barton's Terence, ed. 1614. "I nycke, I make nyckes on a
tayle, or on a stycke," Palsgrave, 1530.
The following engraving of an exchequer tally of the fourteenth century,
is taken by Mr. Eairholt from tlie original in his own possession. It is engraved
the exact size of the specimen, the memorandum on the strip of vellum attached to
it being nearly obliterated ; but the ink record on the surface of the tally itself,
NOTES TO THE FOTJETII ACT.
149
which gives in detail the amount of wood furnished for fuel, &c., to Southwell, is
quite perfect.
Then came your wealth in, sir. — Your observation's good ; I have carry ed the
tallyes at my girdle seven yeares together with much delight and observation; for
I did ever love to deale honestly in the nick. — A New Wonder, a Woman
never Vext, 1632.
26
At Saint Gregory's well.
The annexed representation of this holy well is taken from the view of Milan
in Braun's Civitates Orhis Terrarimi, 1582 ; and the notice of it by Shakespeare
is curious, either as showing his
acquaintance with Italy or with
works on that country, or as an
evidence of the Continental origin of
the play in a romance or drama yet
to be discovered. The subject of
holy wells, that were named after
saints, was perfectly familiar to the
audience of Shakespeare's day. An
early MS., cited by Grose, says, —
"Between the towns of Alien and
Newton, near the foot of Rosberrye
Toppinge, there is a well dedicated
to St. Oswald ; the neighbours have
an opinion that a shirt or shift taken off a sick person, and thrown into that well,
will show whether the person will recover or die : for, if it floated, it denoted the
recovery of the party ; if it sunk, there remained no hope of their life : and to
reward the saint for his intelligence, they tear off a rag of the shirt, and leave it
hanging on the briers thereabouts; where I have seen such numbers as might have
made a fayre rheme in a paper- myll." Several Saints' wells in England still retain
the names of their patrons, the most celebrated being the well of St. Winifred at
Holywell, in Flintshire, consecrated by the preservation to this day of the beautiful
Gothic edifice in which the fountain is enshrined. The water, exceptmg after
heavy rains, is beautifully pure and clear ; and is said to prove highly beneficial to
many classes of invahds ; nor has the well by any means lost its reputation of
sanctity. The well of St. Winifred was visited by Taylor, the Water-Poet, m the
year 1652, and that most quaint writer has left the following very curious account
of it, which may be quoted in connexion with the present subject, as exhibiting in
some degree the public opinion in such matters during the first generation after
the death of Shakespeare -.—"Saturday the last of July, I left EUnt, and went
I
150 NOTES TO THE EOUETII ACT.
three miles to Holv-well, of wliicli place I must speak somewhat materially : ahout
the leng'th of a furlong-, down a very steep hill, is a well (full of wonder and
athniration) it comes from a spring not far from Rudland Castle; it is and hath
been many hundred yeares knowne by the name of Holy-well, but it is more
commonly and of most antiquity called Saint Winifrids well, in memory of the
pious and chaste virgin AVinifrid, wlio was there beheaded for refusing to yield
her chastity to the fmious lust of a Pagan prince ; in that very place where her
bloud was shed, this spring sprang up ; from it doth issue so forceible a stream, that
within a hundred yards of it, it drives certain mils, and some do say that nine corn
mils and fulling mils are driven with the stream of that spring : It hath a fair
chappell erected over it, called Saint "Winifred's chappell, which is now much
defaced by the injury of these late wars : The well is compassed about with a tine
wall of free stone; the wall hath eight angles or corners, and at every angle is a
fair stone piller, whereon the west end of the chappell is supported. In two
severall places of the M^all, there are neat stone staires to go into the water that
comes from the well, for it is to be noted that the well itselfe doth continually work
and bubble with extream violence, like a boiling cauldron or furnace, and within
the wall, or into the well, very few do enter : The water is christaUine, sweet and
medicinable ; it is frequented daily by many people of rich and poore, of all diseases,
amongst which great store of folkes are cured, divers are eased, but none made the
worse. The hill descending is plentifully furnished (on both sides of the way) with
beggers of all ages, sexes, conditions, sorts and sises ; many of them are impotent,
but all are impudent, and richly embrodered all over with such hexameter poudred
ermins (or vermin) as are called lice in England."
^"^ That I may compass yours.
Compass, obtain. "He will easily be able to compass that, id autem facile
conseqid poteritr Coles. Silvia plays on the word will, referred to by Proteus in the
sense of good will, and taken up by her as meaning simply her desire or request.
So conceitless.
A preacher in Spaine perswaded a Moore to Christianity, who, seeming con-
ceiptlesse of what was said unto him, the Preacher said : Eor ought I see, my
wordes enter in atone eare of you, and goe out at the other. The Moore answered,
they neither enter in, nor yet goe out, — Copley s Wits, Fits, and Fancies, 1614.
Thyself aft witness I am hetroth'd.
"Aprill 6, 1020: — ^Was concluded the marriage betwixt me "William Whiteway
and Elenor Parkins, my best beloved, which I pray God to blesse and prosper.
May 4, 1620: — The said W. W. and E. P. were betrothed in my father Parkins
his hall, about 9 of the clocke at night, by Mr. John Wliite, in the presence of our
parents : Unkle John Gould and Mr. Darby, and their wives, my cossen Joan
Gould widow, and my sister Margaret Parkins," &c. Diary, MS.
For in his grave.
So the second folio. Her grave, ed. 1623, p. 34.
Since your falsehood shall become you well.
The construction seems to be this, — inasmuch as your falsehood renders it
becoming in you to worship shadows, &c. Tyrwhitt would read, — "but, since your
falsehood, [it] shall become you well ;" and Johnson, — "but, since you're false."
The original text, I am persuaded, contains the poet's own language. If a comma
were placed sSier falsehood, it would run thus, — but, since your falsehood to Julia,
to worship shadows, and adore false shapes, shall become you weU.
NOTES TO THE EOUETH ACT.
151
By my halidom.
Minsheu thus explains this word in his Dictionary, 1617, folio : ''Halidome or
Holidome, an old word, used by old country women, by manner of swearing : by
my halidome, of the Saxon word, haligdome, ex halig, i. e. sanctum, and dome,
dominium aut judicium." — Malone. " On the halidom ye schul me sweri," Sir
Guy of Warwike, p. 43. " That what they get by cheating, swearing, and lying at
home, they spend in riot, whoring, and drunkennes abroad, I say, hy my hallidome^
it is a bm^ning shame." — Taylor s Worhes, 1630.
According to your ladysJiip's impose.
^'Impose is injunction, command. A task set at college, in consequence of a
fault, is still called an imposition." — Steevens.
^* Valiant, wise, remorseful.
Bemorseful is pitiful. So, in The Maids Metamorphosis, by Lily, 1600 : —
"Provokes my mind to take remorse of thee." Again, in Chapman's translation
of the 2d Book of Homer's Iliad, 1598: — "Descend on our long-toyled host with
thy remorseful eye." Again, in the same translator's version of the 20th Iliad :
he was none of those remorsefull men.
Gentle and affable; but fierce at all times, and mad then. — Steevens.
Upon wliose grave thou vowdst pure chastity.
The question is not of great consequence, but the words thy lady and thy true
love might refer either to a wife, or to an aflB.anced love, — most probably to the
former. Vows of chastity were formerly of serious truth and import. Dugdale,
Antiquities of Warwickshire Illustrated, 1656, p. 654, mentions Margery, the wife
of Eichard Midlemore, "who, in her widowhood, vowing chastitie, built the
fair Tower Steeple here (Edgbaston), as the tradition is. . . . And now, having thus
mentioned her Vow of Chastitie, to the end it may appear with what ceremony the
same was performed, I shall here exhibite the form of a commission made by the
bishop of this dioces for the eflFecting thereof : — Johannes &c. Gov. et Lich. Episc.
dUecto fratri nostro N. N. salutem, et fraternam in Domino caritatem. Per partem
honestse muheris Margerise Midlemore relictse Eicardi Midlemore nostrse Dioc.
nobis est humiliter supplicattim, quod cum ipsa propter ipsius animjB salutem
uberiorem, ac viduitatis ordinem strictiorem, ad Dei honorem devotius ac celebrius
servandum, votum continentise emittere, ac continentiam expresse et solempniter
fovere, necnon in signum viduitatis sute hujusmodi perpetuo, Deo dante, servando
velum sive peplum cum liabitu hujusmodi viduis continentiam perpetuam expresse
et solemniter profitentibus debitam et consuetam, sen ab eis communiter usitatam,
sibi sumere, et ad vitam ea uti in castitate, ut asserit, devote intendat,
ipsam ad hujusmodi suum pium propositum admittere dignaremur : Nosque
hujusmodi supplicationem piam atque devotam, ac Deo placabilem reputantes,
aliasque multiplicis occupati quo minus hujusmodi intentum prcefatse MargeriEe
ad debitum valeamus perducere effectum; ad recipiendum igitur expresse et
solemniter continentise votum et castitatis promissum dictae Margerise, ac in sig-
num hujusmodi continentise et castitatis promisso perpetuo servando, eandem Mar-
geriam velandam sen peplandam habitumque viduitatis hujusmodi viduis ut prse-
fertur ad castitatis professionem dari et uti consuetum, cum unico annulo assignan-
dum, cseteraque omnia et singula faciendum, excercendum, et expediendum, quse
in negotio hujusmodi de jure vel consuetudine necessaria sen oportuna fore dinos-
cuntur, vobis committimus potestatem per prsesentes. Sigillo nostro signatum
&c." The same distinction in costume, observes Steevens, was probably made
" in respect of male votarists ; and therefore this circumstance might inform the
152
NOTES TO THE EOURTH ACT.
players how Sir Eglamoiir should be drcst ; and will account for Silvia's having
cliosen him as a person in whom she could confide without injury to her own
character."
Madam^ I pity much yotir grievances.
Grievances, sorrows, sorrowful affections." — Johnson. The term was con-
stantly used in the sense of sorrow or affliction, which indeed were some of the
uses of the word in Anglo-Norman. An annotated copy of the second folio, in
tlie possession of Mr. J. P. Collier, proposes to add another line to the text, —
And the most true affections that you bear ;
but, independently of the evident danger of inserting a new line into the text on
any other but absolute authority, it should be observed that it is much more in
keeping with Eglamour's extreme delicacy of feeling to allude to sorrows rather
than to affections. The annotated cof)y alluded to supplies other lines, some of
which are so clearly absurd, it would be exceedingly rash to receive even the best
upon such doubtful testimony. In the present case, the interpolated line is clearly
out of place, for altliough it agrees tolerably with the succeeding one, it is not to
be reconciled with the first, — " Madam, I pity much your grievances, and the
most true affections that you bear;" but, although Eglamour pities her grievances
or sorrows, there is no reason to suppose the dramatist intended to represent him
as pitying her "affections." The meaning and intention of the original is clearly
this, — Madam, I pity much your sorrows, and inasmuch as I am certain they are
virtuously caused, or, in other words, do not arise from any want of virtue
in yourself, but quite the contrary being the case, I consent to accompany you.
In the next act, we have, on the contrary, griefs in the sense of grievances,
wrongs.
BecJcing as little.
WreaMug, first folio. This is merely a corrupt spelling, which again occurs in
As You Like It, act ii.
He steps me to her trencher.
"In our author's time," observes Malone, "trenchers were in general use even
on the tables of the nobility: hence Shakespeare, who gives to every country the
customs of England, has furnished the Duke of Milan's dining table with them."
The trenchers of Shakespeare's time were generally made eitlier of wood or
pewter, the latter material being in very frequent use for nearly all kinds of plates
and dishes, as weU as for other articles that are now usually constructed of
earthenware.
Keep himself that is, restrain himself.
One that takes upon him to he a dog indeed.
I would have, says Launce, one who is really a dog, to be a dog at all things,
— the latter j^hrase being proverbial for, to be dexterous or expert at all things.
Dr. Johnson would read, I think unnecessarily, — "one that takes upon him to
be a dog, to he a dog indeed."
He is [a] dog at recognisances and statutes, and let him but get them sealed
by a sufficient man, a hundreth pound to a pennie if they escape without
forfeiture.— Zof/y/e's Wits Miserie, 1596, p. 33.
Why then might there not be a project found out to smother these bees of
Christians to death in their combs with moist brown paper and old cards ? It
would be a double pleasure to see the Christians perish, and perish in torment.
What d'ye say, sons of Loyola? you are old dogs at mischief; go and lay your
heads together. — The Pagan Prince, 1690.
NOTES TO THE EOUUTH ACT.
X53
^ He had not been there a pissingwhile.
"But a pyssjoigewliyle, tant quon auroyt pisse, or ce pendent, Palsgrave, 1530.
"She never but a pissyngwhile persists," Kendall's Elowers of Epigrammes, 1577.
"WiU love any of you all longer than a pissingwhile," Eleire, sig. G. iii. See
also Gammer Gurton's Needle, iv. 1 ; Elecknoe's Diarium, p. 59; and a similar
expression (inaking it equivalent to the time occupied in repeating a paternoster)
in Piers Ploughman. Steevens also refers to Jonson's Magnetic Lady, and to
Bay's Proverbs, q. v. ed. 1678, p. 265.
The feltow that whips the dogs.
This appears, says Steevens, to have been part of the office of an usher of the
table. So, in Mucedorus : — " I'U prove my office good : for look you, &c. — When
a dog chance to blow his nose backward, then with a whip 1 give him good time
of the day, and strew rushes presently." In Shakespeare's time, every place, even
to the church, was infested with the presence of dogs. At Chislet, co. Kent, is a
piece of land, containing about two acres, called Dogwhipper's Marsh, on which
there is a small rent-charge paid to a person for keeping order in the church
during divine service. There is a deed of feoffment, dated in August, 1659,
whereby Bichard Dovey, of Earmcote, granted certain premises to John Sanders,
and others, viz. cottages or buildings, over and adjoining the churchyard and
churchyard gates of the parish church of Claverley, co. Salop, to place in some
room of the said cottages, and to pay yearly the sum of 85. to a poor man of that
parish, who should undertake to awaken sleepers, and to whip out dogs from the
church of Olaverley during divine service.
I did the thing you wot of.
A proverbial phrase for anything not very delicate to mention by name.
" Presently Betrice whispers Cisily in the eare softly that al the company heard it,
and bad her teU Alice that unlesse she tooke heed, the pot would run over and
the fat lye in the fire ; at this Mary clap'd her hands together, and entreats Blanch
to teU her Cozen Edith how she should say that Luce should say, that Elizabeth
should doe the thing shee wots of Taylor's Workes, fol. Lond. 1630.
^ He makes me no more ado.
That is, he makes no more ado. This construction is very common in
Shakespeare. For his servant; this is the reading of the old copies, and it is
no doubt Launce's phraseology.
/ have stood on the pillory.
" The pillorie or neck-trap," (Nomenclator, 1585,) was of various construction.
The engraving here copied is taken from a woodcut in
an early chap-book; and another will be observed in the
early plan of Windsor, which forms' the frontispiece
to the present volume. The pillory, says Holme, "is
the reward of cheaters, coseners, forgers of deeds, and
mens hand writing, treasonable and seditious words,
with several misdemeanours not punishable by death ;
and that is by having a mulct or fine set upon the
offender, and he to stand on the pillory for so many
market days, with papers of his offence set on his
back, there to be mocked, derided, and made a com-
mon spectacle, that aU beholders may see, and beware of the like offences,
and do no such wickedness : grand rogues have sometimes their ears nailed to the
n. . 20
154
NOTES TO TEE FOUIITU ACT.
j)ill()iT, wlierc tliev arc forced to leave tliem, being cut off." See further
observations on the subject in the notes to Taming of tlie Slirew.
IFIien I iooh my leave of madam Silvia.
When I parted from ; not necessarily a formal leave. Warburton would read
madam Julia, but surely witliout necessity.
With respect to the lady's farthingale, mentioned here, and previously in the
first act of the play, see further respecting it in the notes to the Taming of the
Shrew, The example, copied in the
annexed engraving, is taken from
a woodcut in an early black-letter
ballad in my possession. Bulwer
has the following very curious ob-
servations on this part of the female
costmne, in his Pedigree of the
English Gallant, 1653,— "Our late
great verdingales seeme to have
proceeded from the same foolish
affectation which the Chiribichensian
virgins, and women of Cathai, have
at this day: and the author of the
'Treasury of Times' observes that
there are some maides and women
nowadaies, who he thought were
perswaded that men desire they
should have great and fat thighs,
as the Cathaians did, because they
labour to ground this perswasion in
men by their spacious, huge, and
round-circling verdingals. And that
this hip-gallantry ordinarily moves
such apprehensions in others, will
clearely appeare by this relation. I have been told that when Sir Peter Wych
was embassadour to the Grand Signeour from King James, his Lady being then
with him at Constantinople, the Sultanesse desired one day to see his lady, whom
she had heard much of; whereupon my Lady Wych, accompanied with her
waiting- women, all neatly dressed in their great verdingals, which was the Court
fashion then, attended her highnesse. The Sultanesse entertained her respectfully,
but withall wondring at her great and spacious hips, she asked her whether all
English women were so made and shaped about those parts : to which my Lady
Wych answered that they were made as other women were, withall shewing the
fallacy of her apparell in the device of the verdingall ; untill which demonstration
was made, the Sultanesse verily believed it had been her naturall and reall
shape."
Alas ! poore verdingales must lye in the streat ;
To house them no doore in the citee made meete.
Spis at our narrow doores they in cannot win,
Sende them to Oxforde at Brodegates to get in.
Heyicoodes Epigrammes on Proverhes, 1576.
I^ll do what I can.
So the first folio. The second folio, modernizing the metre, reads, "I'll do,
sir, what I can."
NOTES TO THE EOURTH ACT.
155
Didst thou offer her this from me?
The Perkins MS. reads this cur, a very feeble and unwise addition. "Did
you offer her this'^ (of course pointing to the brute with an expression of
indignation and abhorrence, which disdained to call him anything but this),
"this ! from me? The lady must think me mad," Blackwood's Magazine,
August, 1853, p. 188. The original text is exceedingly effective in the repre-
sentation of the scene on the stage.
The ladies of Shakespeare's time were passionately fond of keeping pet-dogs.
" If shee have no children to play with of her owne, hee [the dog] is like to be
her only sport, without the which shee were no lady," A Strange Metamorphosis
of Man transformed into a Wildernesse, 1634. The following curious extract
from the work of Caius Of Englishe Dogges, translated by Fleming, 4to. Lond.
1576, will illustrate the practice, and explain the present scene in revealing the
ancient rage of the ladies for very small dogs : — " These dogges are litle, pretty,
proper, and fyne, and sought for to satisfie the delicatenesse of daintie dames, and
wanton womens wUls : instrumentes of folly for them to play and dally withall, to
tryfle away the treasure of time, to withdraw their mindes from more commendable
exercises, and to content their corrupted concupiscences with vaine disport, a selly
shift to shunne yrcksome ydhiesse. These puppies the smaller they be, the more
pleasure they provoke, as more meete play-feUowes for minsing mistrisses to beare
in their bosoms, to keepe company withal in their chambers, to succour with sleepe
in bed, and nourishe with meate at bourde, to lay in their lappes, and licke their
lippes as they ryde in their waggons; and good reason it should be so, for
coursnesse with fynenesse hath no fellowship, but featnesse with neatenesse hath
neighbourhood enough. That plausible proverbe verified upon a tyraunt, namely
that he loved his sowe better then his sonne, may well be applyed to these kinde
of people who delight more in dogges that are deprived of all possibility of reason,
then they doe in children that be capeable of wisedome and judgement. But this
abuse peradventure raigneth where there hath bene long lacke of issue, or else
where barrennes is the best blossome of bewty."
The other squirrel.
Speaking ironically of Proteus's dog, which was only one tenth the size of
Launce's.
^® A slave that, still an end, turns me to shame.
Still an end, almost always, commonly, generally. "Dumps, and fits, and
shakings still an end,'' Cartwright's Ordinary, 8vo, 1651, p. 4. The expression
most an end, in the same sense, is more common. " She sleeps most an end,"
Massinger, ed. Gifford, iv. 282, and see the examples there quoted. " The words
thus foisted in are of such a sort most an end," N. Fairfax, Bulk and Selvedge of
the World, 1674.
She lov'd me well, delivered it to me.
The construction is, — She icho delivered it to me, loved me well.
You lov'd not her, to leave her toJcen.
To leave, to part with. So, in the Merchant of Venice, — "he would not leave
it, or pluck it from his finger," and, again, — "how unwillingly I left the ring."
The first folio reads not leave, corrected to to leave in the edition of 1632.
— Such black and grained spots.
As will not leave their tinct. — Hamlet.
15G
NOTES TO THE EOURTn ACT.
She is dead, belil'e.
"This is said in reference to wliat Proteus had asserted to Silvia in a former
scene, viz., that both Julia and Valentine were dead." — Steevens.
She dreams on him, that has forgot her love.
I woonder, said Cynthia, that Don Eelix (al the while thou didst serve him)
did not know thee by thy faire face, thy sweete grace, and looking daily on such
faire eies. He did so little remember those beauties, saide Eelismena, which he
liad once scene in me, his thoughts being so deepely imprinted on Celias, which he
daily viewed, that he had no power nor knowledge left to thinke once of mine. —
The Diana of George of Montemayor, 1598.
To plead for that which I loould not ohtain.
But taking the letter and mine errant with me, I went to Celia's house,
imagining by the way the wofuU estate whereunto my haplesse love had brought
me; since I was forced to make warre against mine owne selfe, and to be the in-
tercessour of a thing so contrarie to mine owne content. — Diana of George of
Montemayor, 1598.
To praise his faith, which I would have dispraised.
"The sense is, to go and present that which I wish to be not accepted, to
praise him whom I wish to be dispraised." — Johnson.
Btit since she did neglect her looMng-glass.
It may be implied from the context, that there is here a probable allusion to
the ancient custom of ladies wearing looking-glasses at their girdles. Thus Ben
Jonson, —
I confess all, I replied,
And the glass hangs by her side.
The custom did not escape the censure
of Stubbes, who says, the ladies "must
have their looking-glasses carried with
them, wheresoever they go: and good
reason, for how else could they see the
devil in them." Allusions to the practice
are almost innumerable.
The mask generally only covered a
portion of the face, as is represented in
the annexed engraving from a copper-
plate by Peter de lode (selected by Mr.
Eairholt), the subject being a Erench
lady, who has also, it will be observed,
a small looking-glass pendant from the
waist; but, according to Stubbes, when ladies "use to ride abroad they have
masks and visors made of velvet, wherewith they cover all their faces, having
holes made in them against their eyes, whereout they looke ; so that if a man
that knew not their guise before, should chaunce to meet one of them, he would
think he met a monster or a devil, for face she can shew none, but two broad
holes against their eyes, with glasses in them." Holme, Acad. Arm. iii. 13,
gives a lucid account of the different kinds of masks, — " this is a thing that in
former times gentlewomen used to put over their faces when they travel to
keep them from sun-burning ; it covered only the brow, eyes, and nose ; through
NOTES TO THE EOUUTH ACT. 157
the holes they saw their way; the rest of the face was covered with a chin-
cloth. Of these masks they used them either square, with a flat and even top, or
else the top cut with an half-round ; they were generally made of black velvet.
The second form of mask is the visard-mask, which covers the whole face, having
holes for the eyes, a case for the nose, and a slit for the mouth and to speak
through; this kind of mask is taken off and put on in a moment of time, being
only held in the teeth by means of a round bead fastned on the inside over against
the mouth." The same author, in another chapter, again mentions them : — the
woman's mask "is made sometimes in the
form of a long square, with two holes in,
for to see through when it is put over her
face: others are made round on the top
part, or scalloped according to the fantasie
of the wearer : this was a devise borrowed
from the Numidians, who covered their
faces with a black cloth hanging down to
their breasts, with holes to look tln-ough :
which wear was to preserve their faces and
beauties from the tauning of the sun ; in
the sinister side of this 64 square, is another
sort of mask, called by our English Ladies
a vizard mask: it is made convex to cover
the face in all parts, with an out-let for the
nose and two holes for the eyes, with a slit
for the mouth to let the air and breath come in and out : it is generally made of
leather, and covered with black velvet : the devil was the inventer of it, and abou
courts none but whores and bauds, and the devil imps, do use them, because they
are ashamed to shew their faces." The accompanying representation of a mask
is taken from a woodcut in Bulwer's Pedigree of the English Gallant, 1653; and
see observations on masks in Eairholt's Costume in England, p. 561.
And be it that prescription doth naturalize in Court
Some errors to an habit, held for ornament and port,
Eor things in some unseemly are not such to some of sort,
Yet might, me thinks, be wisht the Court were also prowder than
That vulgers should in tinctures, tiers, maske, fardingale, and fan,
Corive, a Gill be Lady-hke, and Jack a Gentelman.
Warner's Alhio7is England, 1603.
You with the hood, the falling-bande, and ruffe.
The moncky waste, the breeching like a beare;
The perriwig, the maske, the fanne, the muffe,
The bodkin, and the bussard in your heare:
You velvet-cambricke-silken-feather'd toy.
That with your pride do all the world annoy.
Rowlands' Loohe to It, for He stable ye, 1604i.
Oh, let the gentlewoman have the wall, —
I know her well ; 'tis Mistris What-d'ye-caU :
It should be shee both by her maske and fanne.
And yet it should not, by her serving- man.
The Letting of Humors Blood in the Head-Vaine, 1611.
And pinch' d the lily-tincture of her face.
The air hath killed with cold the roses in her cheeks, and nipped with cold her
158
NOTES TO THE EOUETH ACT.
lily-coloured face. See examples of similar construction in vol. i., p. 281. "Keep
up yoiu- ruff ; the tinctm-e of your neck is not aU so pure, but it wiU ask it,"
Cynthia's Eevels.
Comparing her (with false and odious lies)
To all that's in or underneath the skies.
Her eyes to sunnes, that doe the sunne eclips,
Her cheehes are roses (rubies are her lips) :
Her white and red carnation mixt with snow,
Her teeth to oriental! pearle a row. — Taylor's Worhes, 1630.
Now by all my hopes,
By all the rites that crowne a happy union,
And hy the rosie tincture of your cheeJcs^
And by your aU subduing eyes, more bright
Then heaven. — Fine Companion, 1633.
Indeede, had hee beene taken from mee like a piece o'dead flesh, I should
neither ha' felt it, nor grieved for 't. But come hether, pray looke heere.
Behold the lively tincture of his bloud! Neither the dropsie nor the jaundies in't.
— The Atheists Tragedie,
Articulatio, Plin. Cum vi tempestatum, germina vitium auferuntur, aut
imperitia Iseduntur, aut vitiose cseduntur. Eompre ou grever la vigne. The
starving of trees, as when by the force of tempestes the young shootes of vines
are beaten off, or hurt tlu-ough unskiLfulnes, or naughtilye lopped. — The
Nomenclator, 1585.
®^ How tall was she?
The indiscriminate use of past and present tenses is common in old plays,
especially where the subject spoken of is not on the scene. Ritson proposes to
read, "How taU is she?"
About my stature.
It seems all but unnecessary to refer the reader to the very similar incident in
the play of Twelfth Night.
®° / made her weep a-good.
A-good, in good earnest, heartily. " This mery aunswer made them aU laughe
agood," Plutarch by North, 1579. "Whereat shee waylde and wept a-good,"
Turbervile's TragicaU Tales, 1587, f. 98. " Beating of my breast a-good,"
Turbervile, ap. Steevens. " The world laughed a-good at these jests," Armin's
Nest of Ninnies, 1608. "I have laugh'd a-good to see the cripples," Jew
of Malta, 1633.
At length she tucked up her frocke,
White as the lilly was her smocke.
She drew the shepheard nie;
But then the shepheard pyp'd a-good,
That aU his sheepe forsooke their foode.
To heare his melodic. — Drayton, 1593.
The company that stood about
Did laugh at him agood;
And very friendly help him out.
Because he pleas'd the mood.
The Welch Traveller, 12mo. n. d. i
NOTES TO THE FOUETH ACT.
159
Passioning for Theseus' perjury.
Passion, here used as a verb. Compare Love's Labour's Lost, act i. " How
now, Queene, what art thou doing? passioning over the picture of Cleanthes, I
am sure, for I know thou lovest him," Chapman's Bhnde Begger of Alexandria,
1598. Compare Spenser, — ■
And to the vulgare beckning with his hand.
In signe of silence, as to heare a play.
By lively actions he gan bewray
Some argument of matter passioned.
/ hope my master's suit will he hut cold.
" But I make small hast to bring this maide to Thais, and to desire her that
shee would come to dinner. But me thinks I see Parmeno, the rivalls servants,
sadde, before Thais dore. The matter is in case good enough, no harme done yet:
in faith these fellowes have a cold suite: I intend surely to dally a little with this
knave," Terence in English, 1614.
Since she respects my mistress' love so much.
Julia, in the words my mistress, is jocularly alluding to the effects of her
deception on Silvia, who speaks to Julia of her own affection to "thy sweet
mistress," who was of course herself. That this is the true explanation may be
gathered from the next line, — "alas, how love can trifle with itself!" It has
been proposed to place Silvia's exit at the end of the present line, but surely the
second line of Julia's speech renders such an arrangement improbable, as she
would scarcely praise her in her presence in such measured language.
Her hair is auhurn, mine is perfect yellow.
YeUow hair was considered beautiful. " Her yellowe haire, in brightnes
surpassing the sunnie beames, were loose and hanging downe without any order,"
Diana of George of Montemayor, 1598. Julia means to say that Silvia's hair had
only a yellowish tinge, while her own was perfect yeUow. "Light auborne,
suhfavus,''' Baret, 1580. So, in the Two Noble Kinsmen, — "he's white hair'd,
not wanton white, but such a manly colour, next to an auhurn''' Auburn colour
is translated by citrinus in the Prompt. Parv., which would make it an orange
tinge, rather than the brownish colour now so called.
Her black, browne, ahurne, or her yellow liayre,
Naturally lovely, she doth scorne to weare. — Drayton s Poems, p. 233.
The beauty of yellow hair is frequently mentioned in the old English metrical
romances : —
Then they lowsyd hur feyre faxe,
That was 3elowe as the waxe.
And schone also as golde redd.
MS. Cantab. Ef. ii. 38, f. 236.
As rose on rys her rode was red.
The her schon upon her lied
As gold M^re that schynyth bryght. — Launfal, 939.
The her schon on hyr heed,
As gold wyre schyneth bryght. — Lyheaus Bisconus.
In the Life and Eepentance of Mary Magdalen, 1567, Carnal-concupiscence
says to Mary, —
Your haire, me thynke, is as yeUow as any gold ;
Upon your face layd about have it I wold.
IGO
NOTES TO THE FOURTH ACT.
Tlie women of old time did most love yellow haire, and it is found that they
introduced this colour by safron, and by long sitting daily in the sun; who, instead
of safron, sometimes used medicated sulphur. Galen affirmes that in his time
most women were dead with the head-ache, neither could there be any remedie
applied to this evill, because they stood a long while bare-headed in the sim, to
render their haires yellow ; and he reports that, for the same cause, some of them
lost their haire and became bald, and were reduced to Ovid's remedy, for that
defect, either to borrow other womens haire, or to ransack the graves of the dead
for a dishonest supply. Tertullian speaking of this thing, saith, that women were
punished for this their lasciviousnesse, for that by reason of their daily long abode
in the sun, their heads were often most grievously hurt with the headache, and it
seems when this folly was grown habituall unto them, it degenerated into
dotage ; for Lucian very lepidly derides an old woman, who, notwithstanding shee
was seventy yeares of age, yet shee would have her haire of a yellow tincture, and
exhorts the old mother to desist from her folly ; for although shee could colour
her silver haires, yet shee could not recall her age. The Venetian women at this
day, and the Paduan, and those of Verona, and other parts of Italy, practise the
same vanitie, and receive the same recompence for their affectation, there being
in all these cities open and manifest examples of those who have undergone a
kinde of martyrdome, to render their haire yellow. Schenckius relates unto us the
history of a certaine noble gentlewoman, about sixteen or seventeen yeares of age,
that would expose her bare head to the fervent heat of the sun daily for some
houres, that shee might purchase yellow and long haire, by anointing them with a
certaine unguent. — Buhcer's Arttficiall Changling, 1653.
I'll get me such a colour' d periwig.
Any kind of counterfeit hair, either a lock, or what would now be called a wig,
was termed a periwig. Periwigs were of numerous colours and fashions. According
to Stowe, they were "first devized and used
in Italy by curtezans," and were "first
brought into England about the time of
the massacre of Paris." In a letter to
Cecil respecting Mary Queen of Scots,
Mary Seaton is said to have set "a curled
hair upon the Queen that toas said to he a
perewyke, that shewed very delicately."
Periwigs were certainly known in England
under that name as early as 1529, a
" perwyke" for Sexten, the King's fool,
being mentioned in the Privy Purse Ex-
penses of that year; and "perukes of here"
are often alluded to in early inventories, —
" coyffs of Venys golde, with ther peruks of
here hanging to them," Accounts 1 Edw.
VI. The plain periwig, delineated in the annexed engraving, is taken from a cut
in Eulwer's Pedigree of the English Gallant, 1653. Coloured periwigs are
mentioned even as early as in 1577, in Grange's Garden, in the following
singular description of a courtezan's costume : —
"Who listeth to beholde and marke my painting penne,
Shall see their garish trickes set downe, wherby they allure the men.
Eirst with their lawnes and calles of golde beset with spangs,
With died and frizeled perewigs, with hartes fro thence that hangs ;
NOTES TO THE EOURTH ACT.
161
With velvet cappes and plumes they doe adorne their hcddes,
With red and white they painte their face to tice them to there beddes ;
There partlets set with spangs come close unto their chinne,
There gorgets fairely wrought without inclose blacke necks within,
And from their eare there hangs a pearle and silver ring,
As for a bell the sounde whereof such like to hir doth bring:
About hir necke likewise there hangeth many a chayne,
Yea many a costly jem they weare that's given them of their trayne.
Their gownes in fashion are, there vardingales are greate,
Their gownes likewise which are so side do sweepe along the streate ;
Their pumpes most oft are white, their pantables are blacke.
Their wosted hose are purple blew, — thus nothing do they lacke.
Their gloves are all befumde with pure and perfect smell.
Yea all their clothes which smels of rnuske, loe ! here she goes, they tel :
Their smockes are all bewrought about the necke and hande,
And (to be short) I tell you playne all things in order stande.
Churchyard also mentions them in his Challenge, 1593, —
The perwickes fine must curie wher haire doth lack
The swelling grace that fils the empty sacke.
And Wilson, in the Cobbler's Prophesie, 1594, —
To-day her own hair best becomes, which yellow is as gold,
A periwig's better for to-morrow, blacker to behold.
Warner, in his Albion's England, ed. 1602, p. 200, is very severe on the
fashion of periwigs, and the passage, which is altogether very curious, will
illustrate other lines in the present drama ; —
The younger of these widdowes (for they both had thrise been so)
Trots to the elders cottage, hers but little distance fro,
Theare, cowring ore two sticks a-crosse, burnt at a smoakie stocke,
They chat how young-men tbem in youth, and they did young-men mocke.
And how since three-score yeeres a goe (they aged foure-score now)
Men, women, and the world, weare chang'd in all, they knew not how.
When we were maids (quoth th' one of them) was no such new-found-pride,
Yeat serv'd I gentles, seeing store of daintie girles beside.
Then wore they shooes of ease, now of an inch-broad, corked hye:
Blacke karsie stockings, worsted now, yea silke of youthful'st dye:
Garters of lystes, but now of silke, some edged deepe with gold ;
With costlier toyes, for courser turnes than us'd, perhaps, of old.
Ering'd and ymbroidred petticoats now begge: But heard you nam'd,
Till now of late, busks, perrewigs, maskes, plumes of feathers fram'd.
Supporters, pooters, fardingales above the loynes to waire.
That be she near so bombe-thin, yet she crosse-like seem's four-squaire
Some wives grayheaded, shame not lockes of youthfull borrowed haire.
Some, tyring arte, attier their heads witu onely tresses baire:
Some (grosser pride than which, thinke I, no passed age might shame)
By arte, abusing nature, heads of antick't hayre do Iram.
Once lack't each foresaid tearme, because was lacking once the toy,
And lack't we all those toyes and tearmes it were no griefe but joy:
But lawfuU weare it some be such, should all alike be coy?
Now dwels ech (h'ossell in her glas : when 1 was yong, 1 wot,
On Holly-dayes (for sildome els such ydeU times we got)
n. 21
1G3
NOTES TO THE EOUETII ACT.
A tul)b or ])aile of water cleere stood us in stcedc of i>las:
And ycat (which still I bcare in mind) for it I schooled was,
Even by an holy fryer : Thus, quotii he, it comes to pas,
YonL>- damsels, and too oftentimes old dotards, unawaer.
Doe thus offend, whilst thus they seeme upon themselves to staer:
]>ut what they see is not themselves. A tayle then did he tell
llow Eccho and Narcissus weare auctliorised from hell.
That e,o"ging and this acting ])ride in worldlings hearts to dwell :
And either oft in mirrors and in waters beautious seeme,
To curious gazers inn, who those to be themselves do deeme:
Elye glas and water-tooting, girle, Narcissus fall extreeme,
Eeare ilattrie too, for men to maides be Ecclios to subdewe,
Tiie fryer sayd, and all to soone I found his sayings trewe.
Pipinetta. My mistresse would rise, and lacks your worship to fetch her haire.
Petulus. Why, is it not on her head ? Fip. Methinks it should ; but I mean the
haire that she must weare to-day. Li. Why, doth she weare any haire but her
owne ? Pip. In faith, sir, no ; I am sure it is her owne when she pays for it. —
Lilh/s Midas, 1592.
Her yellowe haire, in brightnes surpassing the sunnie beames, were loose and
hanging downe without any order ; but never did frizeling and adorned periwigge
of any lady in stately court beautifie in such sort as the carelesse disorder that
these had With a naturaU crisped periwigge of her owne haire, matching
the brightest golde in colour. — Diana of Oeorge of Montemaijor, 1598.
Alas ! she did not tyre-makers haunte
Eor divelish periwiggs, that well might daunt
Even Mars himself, should he our ladyes meete
With borrowed haire ; most gallants would him greete ;
Nay, 1 mistake, it is their owne they weare.
They did it buy, and paid for it full deere.
Well, since they needes will have it be their owne.
Then soe it is: be it to all men knowne.
Their peakes and fronts, halt-moones, and great rams-hornes,
Let them all weare that would be th' countries scornes.
The Newe Metamor pilosis, 1600, MS.
Bold Bettresse braves and brags it in her wiers,
And buskt she must be, or not bust at all ;
Their riggish heads must be adornd with tires.
With periwigs, or with a golden call.
Lanes Tom Tel- Troths Message, 1600.
Then there shall be no need of wires, nor curies, nor periwigs : the husbands
shal not be forced to racke their rents, nor inhaunce their fines, nor sell thir lands,
to decke their wives. — Smith's Sermons, 1609.
Let them call and cry till their tongues do ake, my lady hath neyther eyes to
see nor eares to heare ; shee holdeth on her way perhaps to the tyre-makers shoppe,
where she shaketh out her crownes, to bestowe upon some new fashioned atire,
that if we may say there be deformitie in art, uppon such artificiall deformed
periwigs that they were fitter to furnish a theater, or for her that in a stage play
should represent some hagge of hell, then to bee used by a Christian woman, or to
be worne by any such as doth account herselfe to be a daughter in the heavenly
Jerusalem. . . . What are tliese that they doe call attyre-makers ? the first
in venters of these monstrous periwygs ? and the finders out of many other hke
NOTES TO THE EOUHTH ACT.
163
immodest attyres ? what are these and all the rest of these fashion mongers ? As
these attjre-makers that within these forty yeares were not knowne by that name,
and but nowe very lately they kept their lowzie commoditie of periwygs, and their
other monstrous attyres, closed in boxes, they might not be scene in open show,
and those women that did use to weare them would not buy them but in secret.
But now they are not ashamed to sette them forth uppon their stalle, such
monstrous May-powles of hayre, so proportioned and deformed, that but within
these twenty or thirtie yeares would have drawne the passers by to stand and gaze,
and to wonder at them. — Bdclis Ilonestie of this Aije, 1615.
Periwigs also have been an ancient vanity, and assumed by them, who were
not well pleased with nature's donative, for the Romans (as many gallants among
us) wore haire which they bought instead of their own. — Bidtcer's Artificiall
CJiangling, 1653.
Well (Madam Time) be ever bald,
I'le not thy peryioig be call'd.
I'le never be, 'stead of a lover.
An aged chronicles new cover. — Cleaveland's Poems, 1651.
Further observations on periwigs, and on the practice of using the hair of dead
people for their material, will be found in the notes to Timon of Athens.
Her eyes are grey as glass; and so are mine.
The expression, " eyes grey as glass," was proverbial, and grey eyes were
formerly considered signs of great beauty. Malone, observing that grey, Avhen
apphed to the eye, is rendered by Coles, ceruleiis, glaucus, says that by a grey eye
was meant what we now call a blue eye; an opinion supported by the circumstance
that the expression is found in the old romances as synonymous with the Anglo-
Norman yeux vairs, which Boquefort translates, ye^(x bleiis. Huloet, however,
translates, ccesiiis, 'graye eyed,' Abcedarium, 1552, and Chaucer speaks of "eyen
graie as is a faucon," Eomaunt of the Eose, 546. " Hyre ev3en aren grete ant
gray y-noh," MS. Harl. 2253. Compare Chaucer's Reve's Tkle, 3972.
Her eyen gray as glas,
Melk-whyt was her face. — Lyleaiis Disconus.
Hur eyen were gray as any glas,
Mowthe and nose schapen was
At all maner ryght. — The Erie of Tolous.
Eull semily her wimple pinchid was:
Her nose was tretes, her yin gray as glas.
Her mouth full smale, and thereto soft and red,
But sikirly she had a fayr forehed.
Prologues of the Canterhury Tales, 151.
Yn a scarlet mantelle woundyn.
And with a goldyn gyrdylle bowndjoi,
Hys eyen grey as crystalle stone. — Eglamour, 861.
His eyen are gray as any glasse.
Momance of Sir Iseulras, Utterson, i. 87.
The haire of your head shyneth as the pure gold ;
Your eyes as gray as glasse, and right amiable;
Your smylyng countenance so lovely to behold.
To us all is moste pleasant and delectable.
Life and Bepentaunce of Marie Magdalene, 1567.
1(11
NOTES TO THE EOURTII ACT.
He acuvsed tlic time tliat liir say
Eelice with hir eyglicn g'l'uy;
Hir gray cyglien, hir nebbis schene,
Eor hir mi luf is miche, I wene. — Guy of Warwilx-e, p. 6.
Than seyde the quene, wythout lesynge,
Yyf he bryngeth a fa}'rer thynge,
Put out my ceyn gray. — Laioifal, 810.
Thomas stondand in tliat sted,
And beheld that hidy gay,
Ilir here that hong upon hir bed,
Hir een semyd out that were so gray.
Thomas and the Fairy Queen, MS. Cantab.
Her arme smalle, her mydyll gent,
Her yjen grey, lier browes bente.
Syre Gaioene and the Carle of Carelyle.
Her eyen gray and stepe
Causeth myne hert to lepe. — Phyllyp Sparowe.
Ay, hit her forehead's low, and mine's as hiyh.
A higli forehead, observes Dr. Johnson, was, in our author's time, accounted a
feature eminently beautiful. So, in the History of Guy of Warwick, ' EeHce
his lady' is said to have 'the same high forehead as Venus' Again, in the
Tempest : — ' with foreheads villainous low'
The English commonly love a high forehead, and the midwives and nurses use
much art and endeavour by stroaking up their foreheads, and binding them hard
with fillets, to make the foreheads of children to be faire and high, and we are
now very lately returned from the practise of clowding the forehead with a
prsecipies of haire, and to nourish a foretop, which tends most to the advance-
ment of the forehead, and the glory of the countenance. — Bulwers Man
Transform' d, or the Artificiall Changling, 1653.
But I can make respective in myself
That is, I can make comparison of. Coles translates respective by relativus.
My substance should he statue in thy stead.
Statue, a portrait, as in the following passage in the Overbury Characters,
ed. 1626, — " Her body is the tilted lees of pleasure, daslit over with a little
decking to hold colour : tast her, shee's dead, and fals upon the pallate ; the
sinnes of other women shew in landscip, farre off and full of shadow, hers in
statue, neere-hand and bigger in the life."
The following observations on the passage are extracted from Steevens and
Singer : — It would be easy to read with no more roughness than is found in many
lines of Shakespeare: — 'should be a statue in thy stead.' The sense, as Edwards
observes, is, " He should have my substance as a statue, instead of thee [the
picture] who art a senseless form." This word, however, is used without the
article a in Massinger's Great Duke of Florence ; — ' it was your beauty that
turn'd me statue.' And again, in Lord Surrey's translation of the 4tli ^Eneid : —
"And Trojan statue throw into the flame." Again, in Dryden's Don Sebastian :
— "try the virtue of that Gorgon face, to stare me into statue'' In the City
Madam, by Massinger, Sir John Frugal desires that his daughters may take leave
NOTES TO THE FOUETH ACT.
105
of their lovers' statues, though he had previously described them as pictures,
which they evidently were.
" In confirmation of M. Mason's note, it may be observed that in the comedy
of Corueliamm Dolium, act i, scene 5, statua is twice used for a picture. They
were synonymous terms, and sometimes a statue was called a picture. Thus Stowe,
speaking of Elizabeth's funeral, says that when the people beheld 'her statue or
picture lying upon the cofiin' there was a general sighing, &c., Annals, p. 815,
edit. 1631. In the glossary to Speght's Chaucer, 1598, stattie is explained
picture; and in one of the inventories of King Henry the Eighth's furniture at
Greenwich, several pictures of earth are mentioned. These were busts in terra
cotta, like those still remaining in Wolsey's Palace at Hampton Court." — Douce.
'^^Tour unseeing eyes.
So, in Macbeth, — " Thou hast no speculation in these eyes." — Steevens.
tt il^t Jfiftlj.
SCENE L— Milan. An Abbey.
Enter Eglamour.
E(jl. The sun begins to gild the western sky;
And now it is about the very hour
That Silvia, at friar Patrick's cell, should meet me.
She will not fail; for lovers break not hours,
Unless it be to come before their time;
So much they spur their expedition.
Enter Silvia.
See where she comes: Lady, a happy evening!
Sil. Amen, amen! go on, good Eglamour,
Out at the postern by the abbey- wall;
I fear I am attended by some spies.
Egl. Fear not: the forest is not three leagues off:
If we recover that, we are sure enough.^ [Exeunt.
SCENE II. — The same. A Room in the Duke's Palace.
Enter Thurio, Proteus, and Julia.
Thu. Sir Proteus, what says Silvia to my suit?
Pro. O, sir, I find her milder than she was;
And yet she takes exceptions at your person.
Thu. What, that my leg is too long?
16S
THE TWO GENTLEMEN OE VERONA, [act v. sc. ii.
Pro. No, that it is too little.
T/m. I '11 wear a boot, to make it somewhat rounder.
Jt(L \\\\t love will not be spnrr'd to what it loathes.^ [Aside.
T/n(. What says she to niy face?
Pro. She says it is a fair one.
Thu. Nay, then the wanton lies; my faee is blaek.
Pro. But pearls are fair; and the old saying is,
Black men are pearls in beauteous ladies' eyes.^
Jul. 'Tis true, such pearls as put out ladies' eyes;
For I had ratlier wink than look on them. [Aside.
Thu. How likes she my discourse?
Pro. Ill, when you talk of war.
Thu. But well, when I discourse of love and peace?
Jul. But better, indeed, when you hold your peace. [Aside.
Thu. What says she to my valour?
Pro. O, sir, she makes no doubt of that.
Jul. She needs not, when she knows it cowardice. [Aside.
Thu. What says she to my birth?
Pro. That you are well deriv'd.
True; from a gentleman to a fool. [Aside.
Thu. Considers she my possessions?
Pro. O, ay; and pities them.
Thu. Wherefore?
Jul. That such an ass should owe them. [Aside.
Pro. That they are out by lease.*
Jul. Here comes the duke.
Enter Duke.
Duke. How now, sir Proteus? how now, Thurio?
Which of you saw sir Eglamour of late?^
Thu. Not I.
Pro. Nor I.
Duke. Saw you my daughter?
Pro. Neither.
Duke. Why, then, she 's fled unto that peasant Valentine;
And Eglamour is in her company.
'T is true ; for friar Laurence met them both.
As he in penance wander'd through the forest:
Him he knew well, and guess'd that it was she,
But, being mask'd, he was not sure of it:
Besides, she did intend confession
At Patrick's cell this even, and there she was not:
ACT V. SC. IV.] THE TWO GENTLEMEN OE YEEONA.
169
These likelihoods confirm her flight from hence.
Therefore, I pray you, stand not to discourse,
But mount you presently; and meet with me
Upon the rising of the mountain-foot
That leads toward Mantua, whither they are fled.
Despatch, sweet gentlemen, and follow me.
TJiu. Why, this it is to be a peevish girl,^
That flies her fortune when it follows her:
I '11 after, more to be reveng'd on Eglamour,
Than for the love of reckless Silvia.
Pro. And I will follow, more for Silvia's love,
Than hate of Eglamour that goes with her.
Jul. And I will follow, more to cross that love.
Than hate for Silvia, that is gone for love.
SCENE III. — Frontiers of Moxitu^. The Forest.
Enter Silvia and Outlaws.
1 Out. Come, come; be patient, we must bring you to our
captain.
Sil. A thousand more mischances than this one.
Have learn'd me how to brook this patiently.
2 Out. Come, bring her away.
1 Out. Where is the gentleman that was with her?
3 Out. Being nimble-footed, he hath outrun us,
But Moses and Valerius follow him.^
Go thou with her to the west end of the wood.
There is our captain: we '11 follow him that 's fled.
The thicket is beset; he cannot scape.
1 Out. Come, I must bring you to our captain's cave;
Fear not; he bears an honourable mind.
And will not use a woman lawlessly.
Sil. O Valentine, this I endure for thee! [Exeunt.
SCENE Another Part of the Forest.
Enter Valentine.
Val. How use doth breed a habit in a man!^
This shadowy desert, unfrequented woods,
I better brook than flourishins: peopled towns:
\_Exit.
[Exit.
[Exit.
[Exit.
170
THE TWO GENTLEMEN OE VEEONA. [act v. sc. iv.
Here ean I sit alone, unseen of any,
And to the nij^litingale's eomplaining notes
Tune niy distresses, and record^ my woes.
0 thou that dost inhahit in my hreast.
Leave not the mansion so long tenantless;
Lest, growing ruinous, the huilding fall/°
And leave no memory of what it was!^^
Repair me with thy presence, Silvia;
Thou gentle nymph, cherish thy forlorn swain! [_A noise outside.
AYhat hallooing, and what stir, is this to-day?
These are my mates, that make their wills their law, —
Have some unhappy passenger in chase:
They love me well; yet I have much to do.
To keep them from uncivil outrages.
Withdraw thee, Valentine; who 's this comes here?
[Retires aside.
Enter Proteus, Silvia, and Julia.
Pro. Madam, this service I have done for you,
(Though you respect not aught your servant doth,)
To hazard life, and rescue you from him
That would have forc'd your honour and your love.
Vouchsafe me, for my meed, but one fair look;
A smaller boon than this I cannot beg,
And less than this, I am sure, you cannot give.
Val. IIoAV like a dream is this I see and hear!
Love, lend me patience to forbear a while.
Sil. O miserable, unhappy that I am!
Pro. Unhappy were you, madam, ere I came;
But, by my coming, I have made you happy.
Sil. By thy approach thou mak'st me most unhappy.
Jul. And me, when he approacheth to your presence
Sil. Had I been seized by a hungry lion,
1 would have been a breakfast to the beast.
Rather than have false Proteus rescue me.
O, Heaven be judge how I love Valentine,
Whose life 's as tender to me as my soul;^^
And full as much (for more there cannot be)
I do detest false perjur'd Proteus:
Therefore be gone, solicit me no more.
Pro. What dangerous action, stood it next to death, ^*
Would I not undergo for one calm look?
[Aside.
. [Aside.
ACTV. sc. IV.] THE TWO GENTLEMEN OF VEEONA.
O, 't is the curse in love, and still approv'd,"
When women cannot love, where they 're belov'd.
Sil. When Proteus cannot love, where he 's belov'd.
Read over Julia's heart, thy first best love.
For whose dear sake thou didst then rend thy faith
Into a thousand oaths, — and all those oaths
Descended into perjury, to love me.
Thou hast no faith left now, unless thou 'dst two,
And that 's far worse than none; better have none
Than plural faith, which is too much by one :
Thou counterfeit to thy true friend!
Pro. In love
Who respects friend?
Sil. All men but Proteus.
Pro. Nay, if the gentle spirit of moving words
Can no way change you to a milder form,
I '11 woo you like a soldier, at arms' end;
And love you 'gainst the nature of love, — force you!
Sil. O Ileaven!
Pro. I '11 force thee yield to my desire.
F^al. Ruffian, let go that rude uncivil touch;
Thou friend of an ill fashion!
Pro. Valentine!
F^al. Thou common friend, that 's without faith or love
(For such is a friend now;) treacherous man!
Thou hast beguil'd my hopes; nought but mine eye
Could have persuaded me: Now I dare not say
I have one friend alive; thou wouldst disprove me.
Who should be trusted, when one's right hand^^
Is perjur'd to the bosom? Proteus,
I am sorry I must never trust thee more.
But count the world a stranger for thy sake.
Tbe private wound is deepest: O time most accurs'd!
'Mongst all foes, that a friend should be the worst.
Pro. My shame and guilt confound me. —
Forgive me, Valentine : if hearty sorrow
Be a sufficient ransom for offence,
I tender it here; I do as truly suffer.
As e'er I did commit.
F^al. Then I am paid;
And once again I do receive thee honest: —
Who by repentance is not satisfied.
172
THE TWO GENTLEMEN OF VEEONA. [act v. sc. iv.
Is nor of heaven, nor earth; for these are plcas'd;
By penitence th' Eternal's wrath 's appeas'd.^' —
And, that niy love may appear plain and free,
All that was mine in Silvia I give thee/"
Jul. O me, unha})py! [Struggles to hide her grief.
Pro. Look to the boy.
Vol. Why, boy! why, wag!"Miow now? what's the matter?
Look np; speak.
Jul. O good sir, my master eliarg'd me to deliver a ring to
madam Silvia; which, out of my neglect, was never done.
Pro. Where is that ring, boy?
Here 't is: this is it. [Gives a ring.
Pro. How! let me see: — why, this is the ring I gave to Julia.
Jul. O, cry you mercy,^^ sir, I have mistook; this is the ring
you sent to Silvia. [Shows another ring.
Pro. But how cam'st thou by this ring? at my depart,"^ I gave
this unto Julia.
Jul. And Julia herself did give it me;
And Julia herself hath brought it hither.
Pro. How! Julia!
Jul. Behold her that gave aim'^ to all thy oaths,
And entertain'd them deeply in her heart:
How oft hast thou with perjury cleft the root?^*
O Proteus, let this habit make thee blush!
Be thou asham'd, that I have took vipon me
Such an immodest raiment; if shame live
In a disguise of love:"'
It is the lesser blot, modesty finds,
Women to change their shapes, than men their minds.
Pro. Than men their minds! 't is true; O Heaven! were man
But constant, he were perfect: that one error
Fills him with faults; makes him run through all th' sins:
Inconstancy falls off ere it begins:
What is in Silvia's face, but I may spy
More fresh in Julia's with a constant eye?
J^al. Come, come, a hand from either :
Let me be bless'd to make this happy close;
'Twere pity two such friends should be long foes.
Pro. Bear witness. Heaven, I have my wisli for ever.
Jul. And I mine.
ACTv. sc. IV.] THE TWO GENTLEMEN OE VEEONA.
173
Enter Outlaws, loith Duke and TiiURio.
Out. A prize, a prize, a prize!
Val. Forbear, forbear, I say; it is my lord tlie duke.
Your grace is welcome to a man disgrac'd,
Banislied Valentine.
Duke. Sir Valentine!
Thu. Yonder is Silvia; and Silvia's mine.
Val. Tliurio, give back, or else embrace thy death;
Come not within the measure of my wrath :~"
Do not name Silvia thine; if once again,
Milan e'en shall not hold thee."^ Here she stands;
Take but possession of her with a touch; —
I dare thee but to breathe upon my love.
Thu. Sir Valentine, I care not for her, I;
I hold him but a fool, that will endanger
His body for a girl that loves him not:
I claim her not, and therefore she is thine.
Duke. The more degenerate and base art thou.
To make such means for her as thou hast done,"^
And leave her on such slight conditions. —
Now, by the honour of my ancestry,
I do applaud thy spirit, Valentine,
And think thee worthy of an empress' love!"^
Know then, I here forget all former griefs.
Cancel all grudge, repeal thee home again.^° —
Plead a new state in thy unrivall'd merit,^^
To which I thus subscribe, — Sir Valentine,
Thou art a gentleman, and well deriv'd;
Take thou thy Silvia, for thou hast deserv'd her.
Val. I thank your grace; the gift hath made me happy.
I now beseech you, for your daughter's sake.
To grant one boon that I shall ask of you.
Duke. I grant it, for thine own, whate'er it be.
Val. These banish'd men, that I have kept withal,^'
Are men endued with worthy qualities ;
Forgive them what they have committed here,
And let them be recall'd from their exile;
They are reformed, civil, full of good.
And fit for great employment, worthy lord.
Duke. Thou hast prevail'd; I pardon them, and thee;
Dispose of them, as thou know'st their deserts.
THE TWO GENTLEMEN OF VEUONA. [act v. sc. iv.
Come, let us go; we will include all jars^^
With triumphs, mirth, and rare solemnity.
J\iL And, as we walk along, I dare be bold
With our discourse to make your grace to smile:
What think you of this page, my lord?*^*
Duke. I think the boy hath grace in him; he blushes.
F^al. I warrant you, my lord; more grace than boy.
Duke. What mean you by that saying?
Fal. Please you, I '11 tell you as we pass along,
That you will wonder what hath fortuned. —
Come, Proteus; 't is your penance, but to hear
The story of your loves discovered:^"
That done, our day of marriage shall be yours;
One feast, one house, one mutual happiness. [Exeunt.
/C i ♦
^ We are sure enough.
Sure is safe, out of danger. — Johnson.
^ But love will not he spurr'd to what it loathes.
This line, in tlie old copies, is given to Proteus, and Julia's next speech to
Thurio. The first correction was suggested by Boswell, and the second by Eomt.
^ Black men are 'pearls in beauteous ladies'' eyes.
" But and (i. e. an) she have noe more good manners but to make every black
slovenly cloude a pearle in her eye, I shall nere love English moone againe,"
Sir Gyles Goosecappe, 1606. "A blacke complexion is alwayes precious in a
woman's eye," Heywood's Second Part of the Iron Age, 1632. "A black man 's
a jewel in a fair woman's eye," Ray's Proverbs, ed. 1678, p. 61.
In the next line, the allusion is possibly to the spots in the eyes called pearls.
SafiPron "mingled with the milke of a woman, and laied upon the eies, it staieth
such humors as descend into the same, and taketh awaie the red wheales and
pearles that oft grow about them," Harrison's Description of England, p. 234.
"Pearles are restorative. — No, not the pearle in the eye," Breton's Crossing of
Proverbs, 2nd Part, 16mo, 1616.
* That they are out hy lease.
Lord Hailes says that by Thurio's possessions, he himself understands his lands
and estatb. But Proteus chooses to take the word likewise in a figurative sense,
as meaning his mental endowments: and when he says they are out hy lease, he
means they are no longer enjoyed by their master (who is a fool), but are leased
out to another. The more obvious practical meaning of the latter is evidently, that
they are let out on lease, and tlierefore not so profitable as if he had them in his
own hands.
^ Which of you sate sir Eglamour of late ?
Sir is the addition of the second folio, which reads thus, — which of you say
saw Sir Eglamoure of late," the word say being omitted in the fourth folio.
^ To he a peevish girl.
Peevish here, and in some other places, means foolish.
0to t0 Ik Jfiftjj
170
NOTES TO THE riETII ACT.
' Moses and Valerius.
The names of two of the outlaws. All editors follow the old copy in reading
MoyseSy which was, however, merely an old method of spelling Moses. The
original edition of one of Drayton's poems is entitled, "Moyses in a map of his
Miracles," 4to. IGOl'. Yalcrius is the assumed name of the page in the story of
Eelismena.
The other monument is an exceeding rich needle worke, interlaced very
curiously with abundance of gold and silver, that presents a very goodly picture of
Moyses, and histories of matters that happened in Moyses' time : this rich tapistry
is hanged about the roofe of the chappell wherein S. Ambrose's body is interred,
and is reported to be above two thousand yeares old. — Cory at" s Crudities, 1611.
® How use doth, breed a habit in a man!
If imitation breeds a habite, he makes it the pledge of sworne brotherhood,
or at least the favour of new acquaintance. — Stephens' Essayes and Charac-
ters, 8vo. Lond. 1615.
With the present speech, and indeed with the corresponding one in As You
Like It, may be compared the following in Sir P. Sydney's Arcadia, —
"And in such contemplation, or as I thinke more excellent, 1 enjoy my
solitarinesse; and my solitarines, perchance, is the nurse of these contemplations.
Eagles we see flie alone; and they are but sheepe which alwayes heard together;
condemne not therfore my mind sometimes to enjoy itselfe; nor blame not the
taking of such times as serve most fit for it. And alas, deare Musidorus, If I bee
sadde, who knowes better then you the just causes 1 have of sadnesse? And here
Pyrocles suddenly stopped, like a man unsatisfied in himselfe, though his wit
might weU have served to have satisfied another; and so looking with a coun-
tenance, as though hee desired hee should know his mind without hearing him
speake, and yet desirous to speake, to breath out some part of his inward evill,
sending again new bloud to his face, he continued his speech in this manner. And,
Lord (deare cosin, said he) doth not the pleasantnesse of this place carry in
itselfe sufiicient reward for any time lost in it? Do you not see how all things
conspire together to make this countrie a heavenly dwelhng? Do you not see the
grasse, how in colour they excell the emeralds, every one striving to passe his fellow,
and yet they are all kept of an equall height. And see you not the rest of these
beautifull flowers, each of which would require a mans wit to know, and his life to
expresse ? Do not these stately trees seem to maintain their florishing old age with
the only happinesse of their seat, being clothed with a continual spring, because no
beautie here should ever fadcf^ Doth not the aire breath health, which the birds
(delightful both to eare and eye) do dayly solemnize with the sweete consent of
their voices? Is not every eccho thereof a perfect musicke? and these fresh and
delightfull brookes how slowly they slide away, as loth to leave the company of so
many things united in perfection? and with how sweete a murmure they lament
their forced departure. Certainely, certain ely, cosin, it must needs be that some
goddesse inhabiteth this region, who is the soule of this soyle: for neither is anie
lesse then a goddesse, worthie to be shrined in such a heape of pleasures; nor anie
lesse then a goddesse could have made it so perfect a plotte of the celestiall
dwellings."
^ Tune my distresses, and record my woes.
'Record, to sing as birds do. "I recorde as yonge bjTdes do, je patelle; this
byrde recordeth allredy,shewyll syngewithin a whyle," Palsgrave. The term is almost
always applied generally to the singing of birds. " Partly to heare the melodic of
the sweete birdes which recorded," Rosalynde, 1590. " Eecording to the silver
Ea-^nu fs f 'rvrn Sh<iAe.<i/>ffir(\t Pf/ii/.t . se/erM/ /rvrri d Manuscript (^<nnmm -p//i/e Ao()/{y (}/' fJie seven^^ent/t. crn^r^,
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ir.^^^ J^^, If ^ ^^^^^^
_ '^o-iT^^ i--(?d>^LL^7->-vci o-n^ ?r>-iJ- is
j^^n^ 4?^o^ pnJ^K^^: Jr^Zu^c^^
Jr^^^ c^^J^ . ^^LT^g/.^
^rtrf^c^ ^z^±^ Till
NOTES TO THE EIETH ACT. 177
flood," Shepherd's Garland, 1593. "How the birds record," Pilgrim. "Now
birds record with harmonic," England's Helicon, 1614. " Sweet Philomel, not
once recording of a note," ibid. "Then began she to record in verses, and there-
withal] to sing so sweetly," Twine's Patterne of Painefull Adventures, n. d. The
verb tune is also applied to the singing of birds, as in the popular distich, — " In
June, the birds begin to tune."
Who taught the nyghtyngaU to recorde besyly
Her strange entunys in sylence of the nyght?
Interlude of Nature, n. d.
When every byrde records hir lovers lay,
And westerne windes do foster forth our floures.
Oascoigne's Complaint of PJiilomene, 1576.
Even so within there wants no pleasing sound
Of virginals, of vials, and of lutes,
Upon the which persons not few were found
That did record their loves and loving sutes.
Harington^s Ariosto, vii. 18, p. 50.
Eayre Philomel, night musicke of the spring,
Sweetly recordes her tunefull harmony.
Drayton s Shepherd's Garland, 1593.
The day is clear, the welkin bright and gray,
The lark is merry, and records her notes.
Peek's Old Wives Tale, 1595.
Whose heavy tunes do evermore record
With mournful lays, the losses of her love. — Wily Beguiled.
^° Lest, growing ruinous, the building fall.
An old MS. common-place-book reads, proving ruinous, an unauthorised and
useless variation. The edifice of love, or speaking of love as a building, is a
favorite image in Shakespeare. It again occurs in the Comedy of Errors, the
119th Sonnet, in Antony and Cleopatra, and in Trodus and Cressida.
" And leave no memory of what it was.
That I may vanish o'er the earth in air,
And leave no memory that e'er I was.
Marlowe's Jew of Malta, Works, ed. Dyce, i. 256.
Lend me patience to forlear a while.
That is, as Mr. Dyce observes, " Lend me patience not to discover myself till I
have overheard more : he accordingly keeps in the background, till Proteus
proceeds to assault Silvia. It is evident that, after he has spoken the line last
cited, Valentine, instead of quitting the stage so as to be out of ear-shot, listens
with intense interest to the dialogue between Proteus and Silvia."
Whose life's as tender to me as my soul.
"As dear, as much the object of tenderness and care. To tender signifies, to
take care of; to regard with kindness. So, in the present play, —
I thank you, madam, that you tender her;
Poor gentlewoman, my master wrongs her much." — Malone.
n. 23
178
NOTES TO THE EIETE ACT.
What dangerous action, stood it next to death.
Et nihil est quod non effrseno captus amore,
Aiisit. Ovid.
Amor timere neminem verus potest. — Seneca.
And st 'dl approved.
Approved, proved or shown by experience or proof. So in the Workes of
Taylor, the Water-Poet, 1G30,—
"When Paul the third the Eomish miter wore,
He had contributary truls such store,
To five and forty thousand they amount,
As then Rome's register gave true account.
Besides, it was approv'd, the gaine was cleere
Eull twenty thousand duckats every yeere.
And in another place in the same volume, —
Another takes great paines with inke and pen.
Approving fat men are true honest men.
With respect to the second next speech of Proteus, it may be just worth while
to quote the following parallel passage from the Warres of Cyrus, King of Persia,
4to. Lond. 1594,—
Nay, then, if amorous courting will not serve,
Know, whether thou wilt or no. He make thee yeeld.
Thafs imthout faith or love.
That used for icho. See vol. i. p. 277 ; and other examples in the present
volume, pp. 28, 31.
JVho should he trusted, when one's right hand.
The second folio reads trusted now, and Sir Thomas Hanmer, one's own ; but
the original text is in consonance Avith the metrical usage of the period. A few
lines previously, the second folio reads, thou treacherous man.
By penitence the EternaVs icrath's appeas'd.
"Joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety
and nine just persons which need no repentance," Luke, xv.
All that was mine in Silvia, I give thee.
It has been proposed to read thine for mi^ie, I think erroneously. The
following observations by me on this line were published some years ago in
another work :
Should the original novel, supposing one to exist, ever be discovered, it will
probably be found to assimilate more to the ancient tales of perfect friendship, than
might be suspected from Shakespeare's play. In venturing upon this conjecture,
I have been guided in a great measure by the romantic generosity of Valentine
in the last act, which scarcely looks like a free result of the poet's own invention.
It is quite true he might have found similar instances in several old tales of this
kind, but it seems more natural to suppose that he transferred it from the same
source to which we are indebted for the play, than that the incident was introduced
from another copy. That any editor can have a doubt as to Shakespeare's
intention to represent Valentine's generosity so great, that, in the excess of his
rapture for the repentance of Proteus, he gives up to him all his right in Silvia,
would be improbable, had we not two late instances of attempts to explain the
NOTES TO THE FIFTH ACT.
179
scene in a different manner; but any interpretation which destroys the literal
meaning of Valentine's gift, renders Julia's exclamation, — ' O me unhappy !' —
which immediately follows, entirely unmeaning. One editor thinks Valentine
suspected Silvia's purity from her position with Proteus in the forest, and is
therefore giving his friend a present no longer desirable to himself; but it would
be difhcult to imagine a supposition that would more completely destroy the
poetry and romance of Valentine's character.
Mr. Phelps offers the following very ingenious opinion, — " we rather incline to
the belief that this surrender, which has been described as an overstrained and
too generous act of friendship, may have been intended by Valentine merely as a
test of the sudden penitence of Proteus."
^° Why, hoy! why, wag!
The term tcag was applied, in Shakespeare's time, to any clever or wild person,
especially to a youth. The exact modern meaning of the word wag did not, I
believe, come into use until late in the seventeenth century. ^'Goinfre, a wag,
slipstring, knavish lad," Cotgrave. "Sagoin, a little crackrope, slipstring, knavish
wag, unhappie lad," ibid. " The archest wagg, the sweetest child," Rival Queens,
1677. In the Newe Metamorphosis, a MS. written about the year 1600, Ovid is
termed "that same wanton wagge."
Cry you mercy.
So the first folio, modern editors reading your. The original phrase is common,
— I beg pardon of you. The modern reprint of the first folio reading your, it may
be well to observe that three copies of the original in my possession agree with the
text here adopted.
I cry you mercy, sir; loosers may speake.
Heyivood's Wise Woman of Hogsdon, 1638.
At my depart.
Depart, departure. So, in the old comedy of Wily Beguilde, first published
in 1606,—
Thus far, fair love, we pass in secret sort
Beyond the compass of thy father's bounds.
Whilst he on down-soft bed securely sleeps.
And not so much as dreams of our depart.
And in the Workes of Taylor, the Water-Poet, 1630, —
The constable had stolne our oares away.
And borne them thence a quarter of a mile.
Quite through a lane, beyond a gate and stile.
And hid them there, to hinder my depart;
For which I wisli'd him hang'd with all my heart.
Behold her that gave aim to all thy oaths.
The aim here is Julia, the object of aU his oaths. The expression of giving
aim is technical in a different sense, standing within a convenient distance from
the butts, to inform the archers how near their arrows fell to the mark. The
metaphorical meaning from this would generally be interpreted, to direct, to
approve, which some think is the sense of the phrase in the present hne. " We'll
stand by, and give aim, and holoo, if you hit the clout," Greene's Tu Quoque,
or the Cittie Gallant, n. d. "This way I toil in vain, and give but aim to infamy
and ruin," Eoaring Girl, i. 1. "I am the mark, sir; I'll give aim to you, and tell
you how near you shoot," Vittoria Corombona, 1613. "I must give ainie no
longer," the Faire Quarrel, 1617. "A mother to give aim to her own daughter,"
180
NOTES TO THE EIETII ACT.
Revenger's TraQ:oc(lie, 1007. " Shame to us all, if we give ayme to that," Hector
of Genuany, 1015. "You should have fought stil; 'twould have bin my glory to
have given ayme," ibid. " lie gives me aim, I am three bows too short," All's
Lost by Lust, 1033. "Before his face plotting his ownc abuse, to which himselfe
gives ayme," Middleton's Mad AVorld my Masters, 1008.
Of gevinge ame 1 cannot tell weU what I should saye. Eor in a straunge place
it taketh awaye aU occasion of foule game, which is the onlye prayse of it ; yet by
my judgement it hindereth the knowledge of sliootinge, and maketli men more
negligent, which is a disprayse. — Ascham.
Am I a king, and beare no authoritie? My loving kindred committed to prison
as traytors in my presence, and I stand to give aime at them. — The True Tragedie
of Richard the Third, 1591*.
The Queene being honoured with a diadem of starres, Erance, Spain, and
Belgia, lift up their heads, preparing to do as much for England, by giving ayme^
whilst she shot arrowes at her own brest (as they imagined) as she had done
(many a yeare together) for them. — Bechers Wonderfall Yeare, 1603.
Heaven suffers it, and sees it, and gives ayme.
Whilst even our Empire's heart is cleft in sunder.
Bechers Whore of Babylon, 1607.
And thus on all hands setting up their rest.
And all make forward for this mighty day.
Where every one prepares to doe his best.
When at the stake their lives and fortunes lay,
No crosse event their purposes to wrest,
Being now on in so direct a way:
Yet whilst they play this strange and doubtfull game.
The Queen stands off and secretly gives aime. — Brayton.
The people had much ado to keep peace; but Bankes and Tarleton had like to
have squared, and the horse by, to give aime. — Tarltons Jests, 1011.
While lovely Yenus stands to give the aim.
Smiling to see her wanton bantling's game. — Brayton s Eel. vii.
Bh. Nay, child, thou wilt be tempted. Pre. Tempted! tho 1 am no mark in
respect of a huge but, yet 1 can tell you great bubbers have shot at me, and shot
golden arrowes, hit I myself give ayme, thus ; wide, four bowes ; short, three
and a halfe; they that crack me shall find me as hard as a nut of Galisia; a parrot
I am, but my teeth too tender to crack a wanton's almond. — The Spanish
Gipsie, 1053.
^ How oft hast thou with perjury cleft the root?
That is, the root of her heart. The allusion, as Steevens observes, is to
cleaving the pin in archery.
^'^ If shame live in a disguise of love.
That is, if shame exists, if there be any shame, in a disguise adopted for the
purposes of true and virtuous love.
Come not within the measure of my wrath.
The length of my sword, the reach of my anger. — Johnson.
^'^ Milan e'en shall not hold thee.
The original text has, ^'Verona shall not hold thee," wliich is clearly
erroneous. Theobald would read, "Milan shall not behold thee;" and the
NOTES TO THE FIFTH ACT.
181
Perkins MS., — "Milano shall not hold thee," which latter I should be inclined to
accept, if it could be shown that the city was ever called Milano by Elizabethan
writers.
To make such means for her as thou hast done.
That is, to make such interest for, to take such disingenuous pains about her.
So, in King Eichard III.: — "One that made means to come by what he hath." —
Steevens.
Taverner was condemned on Thursday last at the King's Bench, for killing a
gentleman, one Bird, in the field, above four or five years since; though there hath
been great means made for his life, yet it is thought lie shall die for it. — Letter
dated a. d. 1606.
And thinh thee worthy of an empress' love.
A kind of proverbial phrase, which has previously occurred in the second act of
this play. A similar one occurs in Othello, — "0, the world hath not a sweeter
creature; she might lie by an emperor's side."
Repeal thee home again.
Repeal, recall. ''Bepeale, to call backe from banishment," Cockeram's English
Dictionarie, ed. 1626. ''Repeal, to call back again," BuUokar, ed. 1671. It is
also similarly explained by Cawdray, 1604. ''Rappeler, to repeale, revoke, recall,
call backe, fetch or withdrawe from," Cotgrave. " To call back again," so glossed
in the Acad. Compl. 1654.
Plead a new state in thy unrivaVd merit.
That is, plead thou a new state, &c. The second folio reads arrivaVd, probably
a mere error of the press.
That I have kept withal.
Keep, to dweU or associate with. This use of the word is stiU common in the
provinces. " To keep, dwell, hahito, moror,'' Coles.
We will include all jars.
That is, we will enclose or surround all our differences with triumphs, mirth,
and rare solemnity, so that they shall no longer be perceived. " To include, to
shut in, to containe within," Cawdray, 1604. " To include, or inclose," Minsheu.
''Include, to containe, to shut in," Cockeram's English Dictionarie, 1626.
"Enclorre, to include, inclose, compasse, hedge, imparke, infould, shut in or up,"
Cotgrave. "To include or shut in, incerrdr," Percivale's Dictionarie, 1599.
"Include, to shut in," "Williams' Poetical Piety, 1677. "To include, includo,''
Huloet. Hanmer reads conclude, but the original text makes very good sense.
The Perkins MS. and Mr. Wheler's annotated copy of the third folio agree with
Hanmer. Similar uses of the verb include occur in Troilus and Cressida, —
" everything includes itself in power," that is, is shut in or enclosed within power,
is comprised in power; and in 1 Henry VI., — "dispersed are the glories it
included," that is, surrounded or shut up within it.
It is, however, very possible that include and conclude were sometimes indis-
criminately used. At all events, instances of the latter word, where we should
now write include, can readily be produced.
If, therefore, the scope of mortalitie consist in the fruition of imparadised
content, or a contented paradise, how requisite is it that knights (for under these
titles of honour doe I conclude true lovers) should loose the freedome of
their owne wils, to be servicable to the wils of their choycest ladies. — Ford's
Honor Triumphant, 1606.
182
NOTES TO THE EIETII ACT.
I^aiiislit the court! Let me be banisht life,
Siuce the chicle end of life is there concluded.
Ben Jonson's Poetaster, 4to. Lond. 1602, sig. 1. ii.
Wliat tlmik you of this page, my lord?
The Perkins MS. reads stripling page, and Kemble, pretty page, mere moderni-
zations of the metre. So anotlicr 'improver' of the text reads, — "What think you
of this pag-e, my tt-orthy lord?" Thus the line occurs in the 'Two Gentlemen of
A^erona, a Comedy written by Shakespeare, with alterations and additions, as it is
])erformed at the Theatre-Royal in Drury-Lane,' 8vo. Lond. 1763. The author of
this anonymous alteration, Benjamin Victor, has added several passages of his own,
especially two scenes between Launce and Speed in the last act.
A similar alteration occurs in a line in tlie previous act, where the Perkins MS.
reads, — "Madam, so please you to peruse this letter," and Victor, — "Madam,
mayt please you to peruse this letter." Kemble reads may it, and to peruse.
The story of your loves discovered.
" Nothing remained but that Proteus, the false friend, was ordained, by way
of penance for his love-prompted faults, to be present at the recital of the whole
story of his loves and falsehoods before the duke ; and the shame of the recital to
his awakened conscience was judged suflB.cient punishment." — C. Lamb.
Collations of the Second compared tvith the First Folio. — P. 20, col. 1, Pray
for thy success; col. 2, losing his verdure, lose my time, in losing him, and I a
sheep. P. 21, col. 1, and I said I, both delivered, in telling her mind, you have
testernd me, hencefore carry your letter, now are we alone. P. 22, col. 1, another
letter Fxit, do what you will Enter ; col. 2, I see things to, nor tutor'd in the
world, ichither were I best. P. 23, col. 1, Pro (omitted in the third line), suddenly
proceed, with Valentino, takes all away Enter, your father calls; col. 2, lost her
grandam, you loolct sadly. P. 24, col. 2, there s an end. P. 25, col. 2, to any
messenger, know you Don Antonio. P. 26, col. 1, no loelcome news. Love can
wink Enter, confirm this welcome, welcome hither, a worthy mistress, look to hear;
col. 2, for Love delights in praise, whose worth makes other, will you make haste
(the ^.i??^ omitted), is it mine then or Valentineans praise. P. 27, cob 1, dazzl'd so,
use my skill Exit, scena quarta, it stands under thee {Spec, omitted but inserted in
ed. 1664), thou that my master; col. 2, to the ale-house so, thus find I hut their
loss, to plot his drift. P. 28, col. 1, to be fantantastique ; col. 2, instances as
infinite of love, undeserving as as I am. P. 29, col. 1, and thou may'st. Sir
Valentine is coming Enter, whither away so fast; col. 2, ifs not to have, if this his
tongue (corrected in ed. 1664), under a clock (corrected ibid.). P. 30, col. 1,
make speed from hence Exit, I fly away from life Enter Pro. and Latins, whom
wouldst thou strike; col. 2, hapless Valentine Exeunt, in a maid with clean hands
En ter Speed. P. 31, col. 1, she need not to be wash'd, here follows her vices, oh
villainy that set down among her vices, more hairs than wit, twice or thrice in that
article; col. 2, takes his going heavily, 1 prove royal to your grace (corrected in
ed. 1664), to look upon you grace (corrected ibid.), and also 1 do think, whom she
esteems as his friend. P. 32, col. 1, and dance on sands; col. 2, shrinTcd not
(corrected in ed. 1664), I have little to lose, lohither travel you, I often had been
miserable, have you any things to take to, live as we do in the wilderness. P. 33,
col. 1, let's turn; col. 2, fear not I will so plead, my will is ever this. P. 34, col.
1, for in his grave, execution in the morn Exeunt, and the most heaviest Exeunt,
no grief did come so near thy heart. P. 35, col. 1, I'll do sir what I can, the
NOTES TO THE EIETH ACT.
183
dog you hade me, by the hangman's hoy in the market-place, that still-an-end turns
me to shame Exit^ therefore know thou for this I entertain he, sad and solitary
Exit; col. 2, I would not have him speed Enter Silvia; as easy as I do tear his
paper. P. 36, col. 1, there is a purse, out of love with thee Exit; col. 2, which of
you say saw Sir Eglamour, unto the peasant, whither they are fled, where it follows
her. P. 37, col. 1, ought your servant doth, seized by a hungry lion; col. 2,
descended into perjury to deceive me, I'll move you like a soldier, thou treacherous
man, who should be trusted now. P. 38, col. 2, in thy arrival' d merit, and all
solemnity. — Collations of the Third compared with the Second Folio. P. 20, col.
1, where score is bought. P. 21, col. 1, henceforth carry your letter, that every
clay with parle. P. 22, col. 1, give a note, belike it hath some hurthen then, you
arr too saucy, I bid thee base; col. 2, I see things too, Panthion and Protheus,
whereon this moneth. P. 23, col. 1, and there's an end, come on Fanthion; col.
2, by gazing on her. P. 24, col. 1, but my duty; col. 2, and seal this bargain, all
the kind of thee Launces. P. 25, coL 1, thy master s is shipp'd. P. 26, col. 2, to
prefer her too, determin'd off, is by a neio object quite forgotten. P. 27, col. 2, I
meant not thy master. P. 28, col. 1, and even in kind love, of such divine
perfections, the inchly touch of love, why even what fashion ; col. 2, undeserving
as I am, being unprepared to your timeless grave. P. 29, col. 1, whether away so
fast, 'tis not unknown so thee; col. 2, whatever she doeh say, to guide the heavenly
cat. P. 30, col. 1, there's not an hair, for they art harsh; col. 2, meet me at thee
North-gate. P. 31, col. 1, Sp. That makes amends, I pray the out with't; col. 2,
pox on your love-letters, she perseveres so, it is spohen in hate. P. 32, col. 2, we'll
make you sir, or else often had, there above the rest, P. 33, col. 1, the more it
gvovfs, faivneth, but F shall hear him speak; col. 2, as F take it (omitted). P. 34,
col, 1, and call her thence. P. 35, col. 1, not I bid the still mark me, no indeed
she did wot, get the hence, for this I entertain thee, and now F am; col. 2, his
changing thoughts forgot. P. 36, col, 1, were there sense in. this idolatry; col, 2,
when they talk of war. Pro. Not F. P. 37, col. 1, Go thou thither to the West
end of the wood; col, 2, though treacherous man, then am / paid, P, 38, col. 1,
the names of the actors; col, 2, repeal the home again, — Collations of the Fourth
compared icith the Third Folio. P, 20, col, 1, an hapless gain, and writers say;
col, 2, gavest thou my letter. P. 21, col. 1, that every day. P. 22, col. 1, you
minion art; col. 2, whereon this month, by industry achieved. P. 23, col. 1, of
commendation; col. 2, when you icalhed. P. 25, col. 1, mark ii^hat moan she
makes, thy master is shipp'd, you'll lose the tide; col, 2, and tho' myself. P. 27,
col, 2, tho' he burn himself in love, P. 28, col. 1, of such (}ivf 'me, perfection; col.
2, myself is one. P. 29, col. 1, 'tis not unknown to thee, if she respects not words;
col. 2, whatever she doth say, tho' ne'er, this night will I enfranchise thee. P.
30, col. 1, for they are harsh; col, 2, tho' not for thyself, at the, catelog of her
conditions. P. 31, col, 1, and therefore comes the proverb. Fa that makes, I pray
thee. P. 32, col. 1, and aftenvards determine ; col. 2, some sixteen months. P.
33, col, 1, and to it lustily, 1 pray what is it; col. 2, have them/^^^y always but
one thing, 1 thank you for you music. P. 34, col. 2, he had suffer d for't, P.
35, col. 1, I bid thee still mark me, get thee hence; col. 2, tear this paper, tlio'
his false fingers hath, wept an hundred several times. P. 36, col, 2, which of you
saw, Enter Silvia. P. 37, col. 1, what hollowing, this service have / done for you,
tho' you respect; col. 2, tho treacherous man. P. 38, col. 2, repeal thee home
again.
EARLY EDITIONS.
(1) . A vitiated imperfect copy, surreptiously printed in 4to. 1602. See the
Introduction.
(2) . Another edition of the same, 4to. 1619.
(3) . The perfect comedy first printed in the foho edition of 1623, in the
Division of Comedies, pp. 39 to 60, sigs. D2 — E6v°
(4) . The Merry Wives of Windsor, with the Humours of Sir lohn PalstafiPe,
as also the swaggering Vaine of Ancient Pistoll and Corporall Nym. Written by
AYilliam Shake-speare. Newly Corrected. London: Printed by T. H. for R.
Meighen, and are to be sold at his Shop next to the Middle-Temple Gate, and in
S. Dunstans Church-yard in Fleet-street, 1630. 4to. Sigs. Al (title-page);
A 2 — K 3, in fours.
(5) . In the folio edition of 1632; the pagination and signatures the same as in
the first folio.
(6) . In the folio of 1664; pages and sigs. ibid.
(7) . In the folio of 1684, in the Division of Comedies, pp. 35 to 54,
sigs. C6— E3v°
INTRODUCTION.
There appears to be every probability that the main in-
cidents of the Merry Wives of Windsor were invented by
Shakespeare himself. The circumstances of the scene of the
play being selected at a town in his own country; of the
manners, costume, and allusions being entirely English; and of
the traditional account of the occasion on which the drama was
said to have been written, all lead to the conclusion that we
possess, in the following comedy, a genuine example of the
efforts of Shakespeare's comic powers directed upon a plot of
his own invention. The few similarities which have been
pointed out in contemporary novels, tend to favor this hypo-
thesis ; for they are merely sufficient to show that nothing more
than a trifling suggestion was derived from those sources.
The incident of an intriguing lover unwittingly exposing his
stratagems to the confidence of the lady's husband, is to be
found in romances of a very early period. It occurs in one of
the tales in II Pecorone of Ser Giovanni, written at the end of
the fourteenth century, accompanied by the circumstance that
the lover, in the first interview, is concealed ujjder a heap of
half-dried linen. In this narrative (the first in the following
collection), a professor at Bologna instructs his pupil in the art
of love, and the scholar practises his lessons on his master's wife,
not knowing that she is the spouse of his preceptor, and comes
daily to report his success to the husband (Dunlop, ii. 316-7).
A nearly literal version (2) of Giovanni's tale is found in an old
English story-book, entitled, 'The Fortunate, the Deceived, and
the Unfortunate Lovers,' one edition of which was published in
1632, and it may have been known to Shakespeare in a more
ancient edition of the work, or in some other collection. A
similar story is related by Straparola (3), in which, after three
188
THE .ALEEllY WIVES OE WINDSOU.
[iNTllOD.
escapes, the lover is warned by a ring, deposited in his cup of
wine, that he is narrating liis adventures in the presence of her
husband, and has the discretion to turn the laugh against the
latter by pretending the whole to be .an invention of his own.
This tale, with possibly a little colouring from that in II Pecorone,
is given in English in Tarlton's Newes out of Purgatorie, 4to,
Loud. 1590, a work which was, in all probability, known to
Shakespeare. According to this later version (4), the lover is
concealed in "a great drie-fatte full of feathers;" and there are
some minor coincidences, pointed out in the notes, which Avould
lead to the conclusion that a perusal of the tale had left a few
traces on the poet's mind.
There is another tale in Straparola, which may possibly have
suggested the incident of Falstaff intriguing with two women at
the same time. In this story (5), a young man makes love to
three ladies, who, having ascertained from each other the fact of
the discursive character of his affections, resolve on taking
revenge. In the interview with the first lady, he is nearly torn
to pieces by being concealed under a bed where a large quantity
of thorns had been purposely deposited; and he is exposed in
an equally serious manner by the two others. The youth, in his
turn, revenges himself on the ladies in a very extraordinary
method, the details of which are not very delicate ; but this
latter portion of the story is here omitted, as being unconnected
with the present subject. The five tales, now given, comprise
every circumstance of the slightest value, yet discovered,
respecting the origin of the plot of the Merry Wives of Windsor ;
and the reader will perceive there is nothing contained in them,
which, in any way, controverts the opinion that the play, in all
essential particulars, is founded on a story of the author's own
invention. The following pieces consist of, — I. The tale from
II Pecorone di Ser Giovanni Fiorentino. — 2. The old English
version of this story in 'The Fortunate, the Deceived, and the
Unfortunate Lovers,' 1632; reprinted in 1685. — 3. The tale in
Straparola, the one first mentioned. — 4. The tale of the two
Lovers of Pisa, from Tarlton's Newes out of Purgatorie, 1590.
— 5. The second tale from Straparola, in which the youth makes
love to the three ladies at once.
(1). Egli hebbe in Eoma in casa i Savelli due compagni e consorti, I'uno de
quali haveva nome Bucciolo e I'altro Pietro Paolo, ben nati, e assai ricclii
deir havere del mondo: perch'eglino si posero in cuore d'andare a studiare a
Bologna; e I'lino voile apparar legge, e I'altro decreto, e cosi presero commiato da
INIROD.]
THE MEEEY WIVES OF WINDSOR.
189
parenti loro, e vennero a Bologna: e ordinatamente I'uno udl legge e Taltro
decreto, e cosi studiarono per ispatio di piu tempo. Et, come voi sapeie, il decreto
e di minor volume che non e la legge, pero Bucciolo, clie udiva decreto, apparo piu
tosto, che non fe Pietro Paolo: perche essendo licentiato, e' prese per partito di
ritornarsi a Eoma, e disse a Pietro Paolo. Eratel mio, poi ch'io son licentiato, io
ho fermo di volermi ritornare a casa. Bispose Pietro Paolo, io ti priego, che tu non
mi lasci qui, ma piacciati d'aspettarmi questo verno, e poi a primavera noi ce
n'andremo. Tu in questo mezo potrai apparare qualche altra scienza, e non
perderai tempo. Di che Bucciuolo fu contento, e promisegli d'aspettarlo. Onde
awenne che Bucciuolo, per non perder tempo, se n'ando al maestro suo, e disse,
Io mi son deliberato d'aspettare questo mio compagno e parente; e pero voglio che
vi piaccia d'insegnarmi qualche bella scienza in questo tempo. Bispose il maestro,
ch'era contento, e pero gli disse, Eleggi quale scienza tu vuoi, e io te la insegnero
volentieri; e Bucciuolo disse. Maestro mio, io vorrei apparare come s'innamora, e che
modo si tiene. Bispose il maestro quasi ridendo, Questo mi place, e non potresti
haver trovato scienza, di che io fossi piu contento, che di questa. Et pero vattene
domenica mattina alia chiesa de frati minori, quando vi saranno ragunate tutte le
donne; e porrai raente se ve n'ha nessuna che ti piaccia: e quando I'havrai trovata,
seguila infino che tu vegga dove ella sta, e poi torna da me; e questa sia la prima
parte, ch'io voglio che tu appari. Partissi Bucciuolo, e la domenica mattina vegnente,
sendo al luogo de' frati, come il maestro gli haveva detto, e dando d'occhio tra quelle
donne, che ve n'erano assai; videvene una fra I'altre, che molto gli piaceva, perche
ella era assai bella e vaga. Perche partendosi la donna della chiesa, Bucciuolo le
tenne dietro, e vide, e apparo la casa, dov'ella stava; onde la donna s'avvide, che
questo scolare s'era incominciato a innamorare di lei, e Bucciuolo ritorno al maestro,
e disse, io ho fatto cio che voi mi diceste, e honne veduta una, che molto mi place.
Perche il maestro di questo pigliava grandissimo diletto, e quasi uccellava Bucciuolo,
veggendo la scienza, ch'egii voleva apparare, gli disse, Ea che tu vi passi ogni di
due 0 tre volte honestamente, e habbia sempre gli occhi con teco, e guarda che tu
non sia veduto guardare allei, ma pigliane cau gli occhi quel piacere che tu puoi, si
ch'ella s'avvegga che tule voglia bene; e poi torna da me. Et questa sia la seconda
parte. Bucciuolo si parti dal maestro, e comincio saviamente a passare da casa la
donna, si che la donna s'avvide certamente ch'e'vi passava per lei. Ond'ella
comincio a guardar lui, tal che Bucciuolo la comincio a inchinare saviamente, e ella
lui piu e piu volte, da che Bucciuolo s'avvide, che la donna I'amava: per la qual
cosa il tutto riferi al maestro, e esso gli rispose, e disse ; Questo mi place, e son
contento, e hai saputo ben fare infino a qui; hor conviene che tu trovi modo di
far le parlare a una di queste die vanno vendendo per Bologna veli, e borse, e altre
cose. Et mandale a dire, che tu se'suo servidore, e che non e ])ersona
al mondo, a cui tu voglia meglio che allei, e che tu faresti volentieri
cosa che le piacesse : e udirai com'ella ti dira. Et poi secondo ch'ella
ti man da rispondendo, torna da me, e dimmelo : e io ti diro quel che tu
habbia a fare. Bucciuolo subito si parti, e trovo una merciaiuola, ch'era tutta atta
a quello ufficio, e si le disse ; Io voglio che voi mi facciate un grandissimo servigio,
e io vi paghero si che sarete contenta. Bispose la merciaiuola, io faro cio che voi
mi direte; pero ch'io non ci sono per altro, se non per guadagnare. Bucciuolo le
dono due fiorini, e disse, Io voglio che voi andiate hoggi una volta in una via che si
chiama la MascareUa, ove sta una giovane, che si chiama madonna Giovanna, alia
quale io voglio meglio die a persona che al mondo sia; e voglio che voi me le rac-
comraandiate, e che voi le diciate, ch'io farei volentieri cosa che le piacesse. E
intorno a cio ditele quelle dolci parole, ch'io so le saprete dire : e di questo vi prego
quanto io so e posso. Disse la vecchietta, lasciate fare a me, ch'io pigliero il tempo.
Rispose Bucciuolo, Andate, ch'io v'aspetto qui. Et ella subitamente si raosse con
190
THE MEIUIY WIVES OE WINDSOE.
[iNTIlOB.
un panieve di sue merce, e andonnc a qiiesta donna, e trovolla a sedcrc in suU'uscio,
e salutolla, c poi le disse, Madonna, liavrei io cosa tra qucsic niic mcrcantie, clie vi
piaccsse? prcndctene arditanicnte, pur clie vc ne piaccia. Et cosi si pose a sedere
con lei, e coniinciolle a inostrare e veli, e borse, e cordcllc, e specchi, e altre cose.
Perche veduto molte cose, molto le piac(pie unaborsa, clie v'cra: ond'ella disse, S'io
liavessi danari, io comprerei volcntieri questa borsa. Disse la mcrciaiuola. Madonna
e'non vi bisogna guardare a cotesto : prendete, se c'c cosa che vi piaccia, pero
ch'egii e pag-ato ogni cosa. La donna si maraviglio udendo le parole, e veggendosi
fiire tante amorevolezzc a costei, e disse. Madonna mia, clie volete voi dire ? Che
j)arole son queste ? La veccliietta quasi lagrimando disse, io ve lo diro. Egli e
vero, che un giovane, che ha nome Bucciuolo, mi ci ha man data; il quale v'ama, e
vuolvi meglio che a persona clie sia al raondo. Et non e cosa che e' potesse fare j)er
voi, che non facesse ; e dicemi, che Dio non gli potrebbe fare maggior gratia, che
essergli commandato da voi qualclie cosa. Et in verita e' mi pare, ch'e' si consumi
tutto ; tant' e la vogiia ch'egii ha di parlarvi ; e forse io non vidi mai il piii da bene
giovane di lui. La donna udendo le parole, si fece tutta di color vermiglio, e
volsesi a costei, e disse, Se non fosse ch'io vi risguardo per amore dell' honor mio, io
vi govern erei si, che trista vi farei. Come non ti vergogni tu, sozza vecchia, di venire
a una buona donna a dire queste parole ; che trista ti faccia Dio. E in questa
parola la giovane prese la stanga dell'uscio per volerle dare, e disse, Se tu ci torni
mai piu, io ti governero si, che tu non sarai mai da vedere. Perche la vecchietta fu
jjresta, e subito prese le cose sue spicchia, e vennesene con Dio, e hebbe una
grandissima paura di non provare quella stanga, e non si tenne sicura infino
cli'ella non guinse a Bucciuolo. Come Bucciuolo la vide, la doraando di novelle,
e come il fatto stava. Rispose la vecchietta, Sta male; per cio ch'io non liebbi mai
la maggior paura ; e la conclusione, ella non ti vuole ne udire ne vedere. Et se
non fosse ch'io fui presta a partirmi, io havrei forse provato d'una stanga, ch'ella
haveva in raano. Quanto per me, io non intendo piu tornarvi ; e anclie consiglio
te, che non t'impacci piu in questi fatti. Bucciuolo rimase tutto sconsolato; e
subito se n'ando al maestro, e disse cio che gli era incontrato. 11 maestro lo
conforto, e disse, Non temere Bucciuolo, che I'albero non cade per un colpo. Efc
pero fa che tu passi stasera, e pon mente, che viso ella ti fa ; e guarda, s'ella ti
pare corucciata, 6 no ; e tornamelo a dire. Mossesi Bucciuolo, e ando verso la casa
dove stava quella sua donna : la quale quando lo vide venire, subitamente chiamo
una sua fanciulla, e dissele, fa che tu vada dietro a quel giovane, e digii per mia
parte, che mi venga stasera a paiiare, e non falli. Perche la fanticella ando a
quello, e disse, Messere, dice Madonna Giovanna, che voi vegniate stasera infino
allei ; e pero ch'ella vi vuol parlare. Maravigliossi Bucciuolo, e poi le rispose, e
disse, Dille ch'io vi verro volentieri : e subito torno al maestro, e disse come il fatto
stava. Di che il maestro si maraviglio, e in se medesimo hebbe sospetto, che quella
non fosse la donna sua, com'ella era : e disse a Bucciuolo, Bene, andarai tu ? disse
Bucciuolo, si bene. Bispose il maestro, fa che quando tu vi vai, tu faccia la via
ritto quinci. Disse Bucciuolo, sara fatto ; e partissi. Era questa giovane moglie
del maestro, e Bucciuolo nol sapeva; e'l maestro n'haveva gia presa gelosia; perche
egli dormiva il verno alia scuola, per leggere la notte a gli scolari, e la donna sua si
stava sola ella e la fante. II maestro disse, Io non vorrei che costui liavesse
apparato alle mie spese, e per tanto lo vuo sapere. Perche venendo la sera
Bucciuolo allui, disse, Maestra, io vo. Disse il maestro, Va, e sia savio, Soggiunse
Bucciuolo, Lasciate fare a me, e partissi dal maestro : e havevasi messo in dosso
un buona panciera, e sotto il braccio una giusta spada, e allato un buon coltello ;
e non andava come ismemorato. II maestro, come Bucciuolo fu partito, si gli
avvio dietro, e di tutto questo Bucciuolo non sapeva niente ; il quale giugnendo
all'uscio della donne, come lo tocco, la donna si gli aperse, e miselo dentro.
IXTllOD.]
THE MEUEY WIVES OE WINDSOR.
191
Quando il maestro s'avvide clie questa era la donna sua, venne tutto meno, e disse;
Or veggo bene, clie costui ha apparato alle mie spese, e si penso d'ucciderlo, e ritorno
alia scuola, e accatto una spada e un coltello ; e con molta furia fu tornato a casa
con animo di fare villania a Bucciuolo : e giunto all'uscio comincio con molta
fretta a bussare. La donna era a sedere al fuoco con Bucciuolo, e sentendo bussar
I'uscio subitamente si penso clie fosse il maestro, e prese Bucciuolo, e nascoselo
sotto un monte di panni di buccato, i quali non erano anchora rasciutti, e per lo tempo
gli haveva ragunati in su una tavola a pie d'una finestra. Poi corse all'uscio, e
domando, clii era. Rispose il maestro ; Apri, clie tu lo potrai ben sapere, mala
femina, che tu sei. La donna gli aperse, e veggendolo con la spada, disse, Oime
signor mio, cli'e questo? disse il maestro, Ben lo sai tu, clii tu hai in casa. Disse
la donna, Trista me, clie di tu ? sei tu fuori della memoria ? cercate cio clie c'e ;
e se voi ci trovate persona, squartatemi. Come, comincierei io hora a far quello, cli'io
non fei mai ? guardate, signor mio, clie'l nemico non vi facesse veder cosa, che voi
perdeste I'anima. II maestro fece accendere un torchietto, e comincio a cercare nella
cella tra le botti; e poi se ne venne suso, e cerco tutta la camera, e sotto il letto, e mise
la spada per lo saccone tutto forandolo : e brevemente e'cerco tutta la casa, e
non lo seppe trovare. Et la donna sempre gli era allato col lume in mano, e spesse
volte diceva. Maestro mio, segnatevi; che per certo il nemico di Dio v'ha tentato, e
havvi mosso a vedere quello clie mai non potrebbe essere : che s'io havessi pelo
addosso che'l pensasse, io m'ucciderei io stessa. Et pero vi priego per Dio, che voi
non vi lasciate tentare. Perclie il maestro veggendo ch'e'iion v'era, e udendo le
parole della donna, quasi se'l credette ; e poco stante egli spense il lume, e andos-
sene alia scuola. Onde la donna subito serro I'uscio, e cavo Bucciuolo di sotto
i panni, e accese un gran fuoco, e quivi cenarono un grosso e grasso capone, e
hebbero di parecchi ragioni vino, e cosi cenarono di grandissimo vantaggio. Disse
la donna piu volte, vedi clie questo mio marito non ha pensato niente. Et dopo
molta festa e solazzo la donna lo prese per mano, e menollo nella camera, e con
molta allegrezza s'andarono a letto, e in queUa notte si diedero quel piacere, che
I'una parte e I'altra volse, rendendo piu e piu volte I'uno aU'altro pace. Et passata
la desiata notte venne il giorno : perclie Bucciuolo si levo, e disse. Madonna io mi
vuo partire : vorresti voi commandar niente ? disse la donna. Si ; clie tu ci torni
stasera. Disse Bucciuolo, sara fatto : e preso commiato usci fuori, e andossene alia
scuola, e disse al maestro, Io v'ho da far ridere. Rispose il maestro, Come ? Disse
Bucciuolo, Hiersera poi che fui in casa colei, e eccoti il marito, e cerco tutta la casa,
e non mi seppe trovare: ella m'haveva nascoso sotto un monte di panni di bucato,
i quali non erano anchora rasciutti. Et brevemente la donna seppe si ben dire,
ch'egli se n'ando fuori : talclie noi poi cenammo d'un grosso capone, e beemmo
di fini vini con la mas^ffior festa e alleo-rezza che voi vedeste mai: e cosi ci
demmo vita e tempo infino a di. E perche io ho poco dormito tutta notte,
mi voglio ire a riposare : percli'io le promisi di ritornarvi stasera, Disse il
maestro, fa che quando tu vi vai, tu mi faccia motto. Bucciuolo disse, Volentieri,
e poi si parti, e'l maestro rimase tutto infiammato, che per dolore non trovava
luogo, e in tutto il di non pote leggere lettione, tanto haveva il cuore afflitto:
e pensossi di giugnerlo la sera vegnente, e accatto una panciera e una
cervelliera. Come tempo fu, Bucciuolo non sapendo niente di questo fatto,
puramente se n'ando al maestro, e disse, Io vo. Disse il maestro,Va, e torna quinci
domattinaadirmi, come tu havrai fatto. Rispose Bucciuolo, ilfaro, e subito s'avvio
verso la casa deUa donna. II maestro subito tolse I'arme sua, e usci dietro a
Bucciuolo quasi presso presso: e pensava di guignerlo suU'uscio. La donna che
stava attenta, subito gh aperse e miselo dentro, e serro I'uscio, e'l maestro subito
giunse, e comincio a bussare, e a fare un gran romore. La donna subitamente
spense il lume, e mise Bucciuolo dietro a se, e aperse I'uscio, e abbraccio il marito, e
193
THE MEllEY A\aVES OF WINDSOR.
[iNTROD.
con I'altro braccio niisc fiiori Eiicciuolo, clie'l marito non se n'avvidc. Et poi
comincio a gridarc, Accoit'Iiuoiiio, accorr'liuomo, clie'l maestro c iinpazzato; c parte
il tencva stretto abbracciato ; I vicini sentendo questo romore corsero, e veg-gendo
il maestro cssere cosi armato, e vedendo la donna clie diccva, Tenetelo, ch'egli e
inipazzato per lo tro})po studiarc, avisaronsi, e se'l credettero ch'e' fosse fuor della
memoria: e cominciarongli a dire ; Eh maestro, clie vuol dir questo? andatevi
su'l letto a riposare, non v'afi'aticate piu. Disse il maestro, come mi vuo io riposare,
quando qnesta mala femina lia iino liuomo in casa, e io ce lo vidi entrare ? disse la
donna, Trista la vita mia ; domandate tutti questi vicini, se mai s'avvidero pur d'un
null' alto di me. Risposero tutte le donne e gli huomini. Maestro non
liabbiate pensicro di cotesto, pero che mai non nacque la miglior donna di costei,
ne la piu costumata, ne con la miglior fama. Disse il maestro, Come, che io
le vidi entrare uno; e so clie c'e entrato. In tanto vennero due fratelli della
donna; perch'eUa subito comincio a piagnere, e disse, fratelli miei, questo mio
marito e impazzato, e dice, ch'io ho in casa uno huomo, e non mi vuole se
non morta: e voi sapete bene, se io sono stata femina da quelle noveUe. I
fratelli dissero; Noi ci maravigliamo, come voi chiamate questa nostra sorella mala
femina : e che vi move piu hora che I'altre volte, essendo stata con voi tanto tempo
quanto ell'e? Disse il maestro, Io vi so dire, che c'e uno in casa, e io I'ho visto.
Kispose i fratelli ; Or via, cerchiamo se c'e : et se ci ha, noi faremo di lei si fatta
chiarezza, e darenle si fatta punitione, che voi sarete contento. Et I'uno di loro
cliiamo la sorella, e disse, dimmi il vero, hacci tu persona nessuna in casa ? Rispose
la donna, oime, che di tu ? Christo me ne guardi, et diemi prima la morte, innanzi
ch'io volessi haver pelo che'l pensasse. Oime, farei hora queUo che non fe mai
nessuna di casa nostra? non ti vergogni tu pure a dirmelo? Di che il fratello fu
molto contento, e col maestro insieme cominciarono a cercare. II maestro se
n'ando di subito a questi panni, e venne forando, contendendo con Bucciuolo, 6 vero
credendo che Bucciuolo vi fosse dentro. Disse la donna ; Non vi dico io, ch'egli
e impazzato, a guastare questi panni ? Tu non gli facesti tu. Et cosi s'avvidero
i fratelli, clie'l maestro era impazzato : e quando egli liebbero ben cerco cio che
v'era, non trovando persona, disse I'uno dei fratelli ; Costui e impazzato : e I'altro
disse, maestro, inbuona fe voi fate una grandissima viUania a fare questa
nostra sorella mala femina. Perche il maestro, ch'era infiammato, e sapeva quel
ch'era, comincio adirarsi forte di parole con costoro, e sempre teneva la spada
ignuda in mano; onde costoro presero un buon bastone in mano per uno, e basto-
narono il maestro di vantaggio in modo che gli ruppero quel due bastoni adosso, e
10 incatenarono come matto, dicendo, ch'egli era impazzato per lo troppo studiare,
e tutta notte lo tennero legato ; e eglino si dormirono con la loro sorella. Et la
mattina mandarono per lo medico, il quale gli fece fare un letto a pie del fuoco ; e
commando che non gli lasciassero faveUare a persona, e che non gli rispondessero
a nulla, e che lo tenessero a dieta tanto ch'egli rassottigliasse la memoria;
e cosi fu fatto. La voce ando per Bologna come questo maestro era impazzato, e
a tutti ne incresceva, dicendo I'un con I'altro, Per certo io me n'avidi infino hieri,
percioch'e' non poteva leggere la lettion nostra. Alcuno diceva, Io lo vidi tutto
mutare : si che per tutti si diceva, ch'egli era impazzato, e cosi si ragunarono per
andarlo a visitare. Bucciuolo non sapendo niente di questo venne alia scuola, con
animo di dire al maestro cio che gli era intervenuto : e giugnendo gli fu detto, come
11 maestro era impazzato. Bucciuolo se ne maraviglio, e increbbegliene assai, e con
gli altri insieme I'ando a visitare. Et giugnendo alia casa del maestro Bucciuolo,
si comincio a fare la maggior maraviglia del mondo, e quasi venne meno, veggendo
il fatto com'egli stava. Ma perche nessuno s'accorgesse di niente, ando dentro con
gli altri insieme. Et giugnendo in sulla sala vide il maestro tutto rotto e incatenato
giacere su'l letto a pie del fuoco, perche tutti gli scolari si condolsero col maestro,
iNTROD.] THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR.
193
dicendo, clie del caso incresceva loro forte, Onde tocco anclie aBucciuolo a fargli
motto, e disse, Maestro mio, di voi m'incresce quanto di padre, e se per me si puo
far cosa clie vi piaccia, fate di me, come die figliuolo. Rispose il maestro, e disse,
Bucciuolo, Bucciuolo, vatti con Dio, che tu hai bene apparato alio raie spese. Disse
la donna, non date cura a sue parole, pero che egli vagella, e non sa cio cli'egli
stesso si favella, Partissi Bucciuolo, e venne a Pietro Paolo, e disse, Eratello mio,
fatti con Dio, pero cli'io ho tanto apparato, che non voglio piii apparare, e cosi si
parti, e tornossi a Roma con buona ventura.
(2). Two friends icent to study at Bologna, in Italy. One of them toonld
needs learn of a Doctor the art of making love. The Doctor taught him, hut it was
at his cost. For his scholar tryd his art upon his tvife, to whom he made love in
the manner you will find here related. — Two YOung gentlemen, who had contracted
a streight bond of friendship together, went to Bologna to study, one of them the
Law, the other Physick. One was called Lucius, the other Camillus. Being arrived
atBologna, they lodg'd together, and apply'd themselves with very great diligence and
success to the sciences to which they had addicted themselves. In fine Camillus,
having ended his studies sooner than Lucius, intended to return to Rome ; and had
infaUibly been gone, if Lucius had not conjur'd him, by all the tenderness of the
friendship that was between them, to stay and pass away the winter with him
there, that they might both return together the next spring. To be short,
CamiUus yielded to Lucius his intreaties, and resolved upon staying. But, that
he might not pass away all his time in idleness, he had a great mind to learn some
other science ; and, in order to this design, he thus accosted his professor. The
friendship. Doctor, which I have for Lucius, obliges me to stay here tiU next spring.
If during this time you will do me the kindness to instruct me in some noble science,
I will receive your instructions with joy, and it may be with success. Doubt not
any thing on my part, answer'd the Doctor, I am ready to teach you whatsoever
you shall please to learn. It is the art of making love, reply'd Camillus, which I
desire to learn. I am yet but a novice, and I would fain acquire a handsom air,
and gentile garb of gallantry. Ah! reply'd again the Doctor, this is a noble art
indeed, an art which hath its rules and maxims, and which comes very near to
poleticks. It is a science wherein I can safely boast my self an expert person ;
and if you have a mind to become as great a proficient as my self, follow my
precepts boldly. What course shall I then take, said Camillus. Go, answer'd the
Doctor, one morning or some Festival day, to the Church of the Cordeliers, at the
time of High Mass. Take particular cognisance of the ladies which you shall see
there ; and, as you go out of the Church, follow her whom you like best, and lose
not the sight of her till you see her at home. When you have housed her, come
to me again. Camillus lost no time. The next day he went to Church very
early in the morning, where he posted himself in a place very commodious to see
the ladies, and to be seen of them. He took notice of one among the rest, who
pleased him extremely. She had a round visage, black eyes, a brisk and delicate
complexion, a little and well shaped mouth, a bosom representing two globes of
alabaster, an indifferent stature, and well compacted. In fine, she was the epitome
of all the charms and perfections that an amorous person could be taken with.
He went out of the Church with her, and lost not the sight of her, till she was
enter'd into her house. The lady all this while, who had taken notice in the
Church of the amorous glances he had directed to her, concluded thereupon her-
self to be the object of his inclination. Camillus immediately went to the Doctor
to take new measures from him. The Doctor, who suspected nothing of his own
wife, heard with great pleasure the report his disciple made to him of his trans-
actions. In fine, he advis'd him to make two or three turns modestlv before the
n. 25
THE MERllY AVIYES OE WINDSOR.
[iNTROD.
liouse of tlic lady, whom lie had follow'd. As soon as you see licr, said he, salute
her wilh a prolouud respect, to make her understand the passion which you have
for her. Bnt take your time, and do it in such a manner as not to he discover'd
by any body but her self. After that, come again to me. The lover followed his
master's advice, passed modest ly before the ladies house, cast his secret regards, and
as he passed by, took the liberty to salute her. AVhich he did with a most
])rofound respect, and at a time when there were no passengers in the street.
Camillus, who was a man of a good presence, had the good foi'tune to please this
lady. She cast attentive regards upon him, and return'd his salutation with a
sweet and amiable eye. And what could Camillus conclude from these com-
])laisances, but that this lady had a particular love for him? And indeed he found
himself not deceived. All transported with joy, he went to inform the Doctor of
his good fortune. Tlie Doctor applauded his conduct, and promis'd him a
prosperous success. And, the better to carry on the affair, he advised him to write
an amorous letter to the lady, and to intrust it in the hands of one of those
Avomen who use to go from house to house to vend their wares, and under
that pretext are easily admitted to the most private concerns of the ladies.
Camillus immediately put pen to paper, and imploy'd one of these female letter-
carriers. She undertook the business ; but what success she had you will wonder
to hear. She was so far from making much of this woman, that she treated her
with a thousand reproachful expressions, and threw the letter in her face. What
do you take me for ? said she, you old wretch ! know my vertue is proof against all
your stratagems. You had better pack away with speed, and must not hope to
find here the penny-worths you gape so much after. The poor woman, who Avas
afraid of being ill handled, as well as ill treated with the tongue, packed up her
bag and baggage, and away she trotted. She went presently, and gave Camillus
an account of her success. Who was not a little surprized thereat, and concluded
from thence, that this lady was too severe to be ever brought to his bow. Upon
this he went again to the Doctor's house, and with a melancholy tone recounted to
him all that had passed. The Doctor bid him not be troubled, telling him that
the tree is not fell'd with one stroke, and advis'd, for all this, not to fail to make
another onset. Go, said he, again, and take some turns before this ladies door,
and observe very well what her countenance is toward you. So said, so done.
Our lover takes heart of grace, and presently steers his course again to his mis-
tresses house. The lady no sooner saw him, but she commanded her chambermaid
to go after him, and to tell him from her, that, if he would come that night to the
garden door, she would speak with him. The maid, staying near the Church, and
waiting his coming by, desir'd him to go along with her into the Church, for that
she had something of importance to communicate to him. Camillus, though
somewhat surpriz'd, however went into the Church after the maid. Who, taking
him aside into a by-place, told him what she had to impart to him from her lady,
and desir'd him of all loves not to fail being present at the time and place
appointed. Camillus, all transported with joy, assured her he would not fail to go
and receive her ladies commands, at the hour she had appointed him. In
the interim he return'd to his Doctor, to render him an account of what had
passed, and to make him a partaker of his good fortune. It Avas at this time
that the Doctor kept himself up close in the academy, because the days being-
short, he Avas obliged to read to his scholars by night. So that Camillus found
him in the academy, where the Doctor Avas pleased to hear the success of this
last adventure. But, as he was a person naturally inclin'd to jealousy (a passion
extraordinarily reigning in Italy) he oftentimes revolved in his mind the descrip-
tion Camillus had made to him of this lady; insomuch that it came into his head,
iviEOD.] THE MERUY WIVES OF AVINDSOR. 195
that possibly it might be his own wife. The good man, who was pretty well in
years, knew that his wife had cause enough to complain. In fine, he doubted
very much, lest the gallant had learnt this science of him at his cost. Thereupon
he resolv'd to follow him at a distance, after he had inform'd him of the nearest
way to his mistresses house. Camillus put on a coat of a mail, and went arm'd
with sword and dagger to defend himself against all assaults. Our gallant was no
sooner arriv'd at the garden-door, but he was let in. The lady received him with
open arms, and gave him a world of undoubted marks of the sincerity of her
affection towards him. Sir, said she, it is no hard matter for me to recollect the
time since you first did me the honour to think me worthy of your love, and you
may assure yourself you have not to do with an ungrateful or cruel person. Let
us quench our flames together, and injoy such charming delights as may exceed
what ever the most heroick souls have yet ere comprehended. Take not in ill part,
pursued she, the manner in which I lately receiv'd your amorous lines. It was
necessary to proceed in that fashion, that I might conceal my love the better; and
all these love-letter-carriers are, at the bottom, but a company of mercenary souls.
The chamber-maid, having shut and bolted the door, immediately the lady con-
ducted Camillus into her chamber. The Doctor, who saw Camillus enter the
garden, remain'd no longer in suspence concerning this affair. Jealousy gnaw'd
upon his heart, and put him in a most desperate condition. In stead of knocking
at the door, he return 'd to the academy, to go and fetch his arms, that he might
give the fatal blow to the ravisher of his honour. But, in regard the academy
was far enough from his house, his wife and her gallant in the mean Avhile lost no
time. They satisfied tlieir passion, while the husband was taking a course to
satisfie his revenge. In fine, the Doctor arrived, and knock'd at the gate with an
authority no less than that of master of the house. The maid look'd out at the
window, knew her master's voice, and presently went and inform'd her mistress
thereof. Judge then iu what confusion and disorder, and what a peck of troubles,
these lovers were in. The maid, the better to give her mistress time to hide her
gallant, made use of this trick. As she went down stairs in great haste, she pre-
tended to fall; and, in the counterfeit fall, out went the candle. So that she was
forc'd to go, and light it again. All this took up time, and gave opportunity to
dispose of the lover in a place of security. Mean while the Doctor raps at the
door with all his force. At last the maid comes, and opens it ; but, as she opens
it, feigns her self hurt. In rushes the Doctor, with sword in hand, runs presently
up to his wives chamber, and roundly asks where the young gallant was, whom he
saw enter the garden-gate ? His wife, seeming much startled at the question,
answer'd There was nobody in the house but herself and her maid ; that he might
search all about; and, if he found his suspicion true, she would fi-eely be content to
suffer the utmost punishment could be inflicted. Upon these words, the good
man takes the candle, and looks all about in every nook and corner. His jealousy
carries him into every place, into the barn, into the cellar, into the garden. And,
as he went thus looking in vain, and found nothing, his wife went after him with a
candle in her hand, still redoubling her protestations, which made him apt to tliink
at last that all was but meer illusion. Thus the Doctor put up his sword in his
scabbard, and gave the candle into his maids hands. He fancied that, it being
somewhat dark, and he at a pretty distance when he thought he saw the gallant
enter, possibly the young man might have enter'd into some neighbour's house. In
fine, he concludes, happily for his wife and gallant, that he miglit be deceiv'd.
With these thoughts he return'd again to the academy, purposing next morning to
inform himself better in this affair by his disciple. Mean while Camillus creeps
out of his prison, the gates were made fast again, and a good supper prepared.
19G
THE MEllllY WIVES OF WIXDSOrt.
[iNTROD.
Slipper ho'mrr ready, tliev repair to the 1;il)le ; and supper ended, to bed. As soon
as it Nvas lii;lit, Caiiiillus betlioiig-ht liiuiseU'or retiring-; but not belbrc the fair one
made him promise to come to lier aj^'ain the nig-ht following-. Our o-allant, as soon
as he had dis])atch'd some other all'airs of his, retuni'd to the academy, where he
recited to his J)octor the pleasures he had enjoy 'd with his mistress, and the troubles
he had been put to through the ])ursuit of a jealous husband. The Doctor, who
put a good face upon the business, and made the best of a bad market, ask'd him
in what place he had been hidden ? Camillus answer'd him, that he had been
hidden in a heap of linnen which was but half dry. In conclusion, he expressed
his hig-h obligation to the Doctor, for that by his instructions he had gain'd
possession of a lady, whose beauty far surpass'd all the beauties of the town.
Moreover, he protested that the goddess of love and beauty had not a body more
curiously framed than hers. At length he inform'd the Doctor, that in the evening
he was to go again, and to pass the following night with her. And, as he had taken
but little repose the foregoing night, he said he would go and take some rest, to
the end he might be the better enabled to perform his duty the night following. The
Doctor thereupon intreated him to come again, and see him, before he went to his
mistress. Camillus promis'd him he would, and so they parted. The Doctor
began to have his eyes opened, before Camillus had time to shut his. He was
hardly able to contain himself, while Camillus was yet speaking ; and his jealousy
seized so strongly upon his spirit, that he could scarce make his lecture to his
scholars. His heart w^as even transported with grief, and he had no consolation but
in his hopes of revenging himself upon the dishonesty of his wife and her gallant.
Evening being come, CamiUus came to see him, and to tell him he was just going.
Go in a good hour, said the Doctor, and to morrow morning fail not to come again,
and give me an account of your adventures. Eut our gallant was no sooner gone,
but the Doctor, all armed as he was, threw his cloak over his shoulders, and follow'd
him fair and softly. He thought to overtake him by that time he got to the
garden-door. But the fair one, wdio with impatience expected his arrival, as soon
as she discern'd it was her lover, let him in, and shut the door after him. Presently
after arriv'd the Doctor, knockt at the door with aU his might, and made a horrible
outcry. His wife, putting Camillus behind her, asked who was there ? The Doctor,
storming and making a fearful noise, commanded her to open. As she open'd the
door, she put out the candle, took her husband in with one hand, and with the
other thrust Camillus out, who nimbly made his escape. As good luck would
have it, the Doctor perceiv'd nothing. The lady immediately began to cry
out for help, as fearing he would kill her, and expecting the succor of the
neighbourhood, she and her maid held the good man fast by the arms. The
neighbours, all alarm'd, came in from all parts. They beheld the Dr. armed
cap-a-pe, a spectacle sufficiently surprizing. His wife made him pass for a
lunatick, and told the neighbours her husl)and was grown mad with over-much
study. They, seeing him in that posture, easily beleived her. And, while they
used all their endeavours, to persuade him to go and repose him ; I repose my
selfe ! said the Doctor, at a time wdien this w icked woman keeps a gallant lockt up
in my house, a gallant whom with my own eyes I saw enter. Unhappy woman
that I am, reply'd his wife, to have to do with such a husband ! Ask all the
neighbours, if ever they saw any ill action by me. Eray, Mr. Doctor, said all the
good neighbours, be not over-hasty to entertain any such thought of your w ife.
Certainly you deceive yourself, and the lady is too honest for you to have any such
suspicion of her. You know not, said he, what you say: for my part, I saw a man
enter here a while ago, and know wdio he is. It is the same person who came
hither last night, and I thought to surprize, but that this wicked woman hid him
LN^TEOD.]
THE MEEEY WIVES OE WINDSOE.
197
under a great heap of linnen. As he was going on in his speech, in come his
wive's brothers, whom she had sent out for. As soon as ever she saw them, she
went to tliem with her eyes all bathed in tears, and thus address'd her speech to
them. Assist me, my dear brothers, in this unhappy condition to which you see
me now reduced ; my husband is become mad, and hath a design to murther me :
a conceit is enter'd into his pate, that I keep a man here for my pleasure. I
leave it to you to judge, whether I am such a person as he would have me thought
to be. The brothers immediately discourse the Doctor, and blame him for his
folly and injustice. I am certain, said the Doctor, there is a man here, whom this
impudent woman let in before my face not above a quarter of an hour since. See
if it be so, said the brothers; and, if we find him here, assure yourself. Doctor, we
will chastise our sister according to her merit. Upon this one of them took his
sister aside, and pray'd her, if she had any person concealed in the house, to
confess it, to the end she might save her honour. His sister, who knew well enough
there was no body, protested she was altogether innocent of the crime laid to her
charge, and that she would willingly suffer death, if they found her culpable.
Her brother was extremely satisfy'd with her answer. In fine, the Doctor, and
his wives brothers, having placed the neighbours at the gate of the house to hinder
this pretended gallant from making his escape, went and made search in every
corner of the house. They came at last to the heap of linnen which was still remaining
in the fair one's chamber, where Camillus had been concealed the night before.
The Doctor made no question but to find his wives gallant in the heap of linnen,
takes out the linnen piece by piece, but found not the person he lookt for. His
wife presently began to cry out, Do you not see now, plainly, that he is mad?
It is but too evident, answer'd one of them. If he have not lost his senses, said
another of them, we must needs conclude him to be a very naughty man, thus to
disgrace our sister as he hath done. Mean while the Doctor, knowing very well
how the case stood, brake forth into a rage, and having his sword still drawn in his
hand, began to run at his brothers-in-law. They having none of them a sword, took
each of them a good cudgel, and having first disarmed him, belabour'd him in a most
severe manner. This done, they bound him as a madman ; and, for fear any mis-
fortune should happen, lodged themselves in the house. The next morning they sent
for a physician, who order'd that no Body should speak to him, and that he should be
kept to a diet. Presently news was spread through the whole town, that the Dr.
was run mad, and upon this report a thousand reflexions were made. Don't you
remember, said one of his scholars to another, that yesterday he could not go on
with his lecture to us? Truly, said the other, the Doctor seem'd very much
altered from what he used to be, so that in effect he appear'd clear another man.
Camillus all this while knew nothing of all this, till such time as he came again to
the academy, to give the Doctor an account of his last adventure. Then it was that
he understood from the scholars, that the Doctor had lost his senses, and that he
lay chain'd up in his own house. He shewed himself very much troubled at the
news, and took a resolution with some other of the scholars to go and give him a
visit. Our gallant was very much startled, when he saw the Doctor all battered
and bruised with striving to break his chains, and lying upon a bed by the fire-
side. He was ready to drop down at the sight of so sad a spectacle ; but the Doctor's
wife, being there, took Camillus aside, and recited all that had passed. As for
Camillus, he then first began to understand that it was from her husband he had
received aU his instructions of love. All the intrigue being discover' d between
them, Camillus was thinking to retire, and not see the Doctor any more. But his
mistriss perswaded him to go in again, well knowing that what ever the Doctor
could possibly say, the company would never give any credit to the word of a
198
THE MEilEY AVIVES OE WINDSOR.
[iXTROD.
])crson that went for a mad-man. Camillas then ap})roachc(l the Doctor, and
testilled very much sorrow to sec him in that condition. The Doctor looking" upon
him with a tierce look, The Devil take you, said he, Camillus, don't come hither
to mock me. You have very well learnt the art of love at my cost. My dear
cavalier, said the Doctor's M'ife, take no heed to what he saith, for he is out of his
wits. Thou hast good reason, infamous wonum, said the Doctor, to call him thy
cavalier. At these words the lady tipt Camillus a wink with her eye, to follow
her into her chamber. AVliere, in regard Lucius had taken a firm resolution to
part within two days, he advertis'd his mistriss thereof; who thereupon was most
desperately atllicted, conjured and importuned him of all loves to stay; but he
could not be prevailed with. In fine, after many tender endearments, and recipro-
cal promises of eternal love, Camillus took leave of his mistriss. At parting he
put a diamond ring- upon her finger, and she on the other side took off a chain of
g-old from her neck, and pray'd him to keep it as a pledge of her love. Soon after,
redoubling their kisses and embraces, they took leave of each other. The morrow
after Camillus obliged Lucius to be gone ; and, as they were upon the way in
their journy, he imparted the story of his adventures to him ; and so, by little
journeys, they arrived in their due time at Home.
(3). Gallese, re di Portogallo, hebbe un figiiuolo Nerino per nome chiamato, e in
tal maniera il fece nudrire, ch'egli (sino a tanto, che non pervenisse al decim'ottavo
anno della sua eta) non potesse vedere donna alcuna, se non la madre, e la balia, che
10 nudricava. Venuto adunqueNerino alia eta perfetta, determino il re di mandarlo in
studio aPadova, accioche egli imparasse le lettere latine,la lingua,e i costumiltaliani,
e cosi come egii determino, cosi fece. Hora essendo il giovine Nerino in Padova, e ha-
vendo presa amicitia di molti scolari, che quotidianamente il cortegiavano, avenue, che
tra questi v'era un medico, che maestro Eaimondo Erunello Eisico si nominava, e
sovente ragionando tra loro diverse cose, si misero (come e usanza de' giovani) a ra-
gionare della bellezza delle donne, e chi diceva I'una, e chi I'altra cosa. Ma Nerino,
percioche per lo adietro non haveva veduta donna alcuna, eccetto la madre, e la balia
sua animosamente diceva ; che per suo giudicio non si trovava al mondo donna, che
fusse piu bella, piu leggiadra, e piu attilata che la madre sua. Et essendone state a
lui dimostrate molte, tutte come carogne a comparatione della madre sua reputava.
Maestro Raimondo, ch'aveva una moglie delle belle donne, che mai la natura
facesse, postosi la gorghiera delle ciancie disse. S. Nerino io ho veduta una donna
di tal bellezza, che quando voi la vedeste, forse non la reputareste meno, anzi piu bella
della madre vostra. A cui rispose Nerino, ch'egli credere non lo poteva, ch'ella
fosse piu formosa della madre sua, ma che ben harebbe piacere di vederla. A cui
disse maestro Eaimondo, quando vi sia a grado di vederla mi offerisco di mostrarvela.
Di questo (rispose Nerino) ne saro molto contento, e vi rimarro obligato. Disse
allora M. Eaimondo. Poiche vi piace di vederla, verrete domattina nella chiesa del
domo, che vi prometto che la vedrete. Et andatoscne a casa disse alia moglie.
Dimane lievati di letto per tempo, e acconciati il capo, e fatti bella, e vestiti honora-
tissimamente, percio io voglio, che tu vadi uell'hora della messa solenne del domo ad
udir I'officio. Genobbia (cosi era il nome della moglie di messer Eaimondo) non
essendo usa di andar hor quinci, lior quindi, ma la maggior parte si stava in casa a
cucire, e ricamare, molto di questo si maravigiio, ma percioche cosi egli voleva, e era
11 desiderio suo, eUa cosi fece, e si mise in punto, e conciossi si fattamente, che non
donna, anzi Dea pareva. Andatasene adunque Genobbia nel sacro tempio, si come
il marito I'haveva imposto, venne Nerino figiiuolo del re in chiesa, e veduta
Genobbia, tra se stesso bellissima la giudico. Partita la bella Genobbia, sopragiunse
maestro Eaimondo, e accostatosi a Nerino disse. Hor che vi pare di quella donna,
che hora e partita di chiesa ? parvi, ch'ella patisca o])positione alcuna ? E' ella piu
ixTROD.] THE MEEHY WIVES OE WINDSOR.
199
bella della madre vostra? Veraraente disseNerino, ch'ella e bella, e la natura piu bella
far non la potrebbe. Ma ditemi per cortesia, di cui e ella moglie, e dove habita? A
cui maestro Raimondo non rispose a verso, percioclie dirglielo non voleva. Allora
disse Nerino. Maestro Eaimondo mio, se voi non volete dirmi, chi ella sia, e dove
habita, almeno contentatemi di questo, ch'io un' altra fiata la vegga. Ben volentieri
rispose M. Eaimondo. Dimane verrete qua in chiesa, e io faro si, clie come hoggi
la vedrete. Et andatosene a casa M. Eaimondo, disse alia moglie Genobbia appa-
reccbiati per domattina, clie io voglio, che tu vadi a messa nel domo, e se mai tu ti
festi bella, e pomposamente vestisti, fa che dimane ilfacci. Genobbia di cio (come
prima) stavasi maravigliosa. Ma, percioche importava il coraandamento del marito,
ella fece tanto quanto per lui imposto le fu. Venuto il giorno Genobbia riccaraente
vestita, e vie piu del solito ornata, in chiesa se n'ando. E non stette molto, che
Nerino venne, il qual veggendola bellissima tanto del lei amore s'infiammo, quanto
mai huomo di donna facesse. Et essendo giunto maestro Eaimondo, Nerino lo prego,
che egli dir li dovesse, chi era costei, che si bella agli occhi suoi pareva. Ma
fingendo Maestro Eaimondo di haver pressa per rispetto delle pratiche sue nulla
allora dir gli volse, ma lasciato il giovane cuocersi nel suo unto, lietamente si parti.
La onde Nerino alquanto d'ira acceso per lo poco conto, che maestro Eaimondo
haveva mostrato farsi di lui, tra se stesso disse. Tu non voi, ch'io sappia, chi ella
sia, e dove habiti, e io lo sapro a tuo malgrado. Et uscito della chiesa, tanto
aspetto, che la bella donna ancor usci della chiesa fuori, e fattale riverenza con
modesto modo, e volto allegro, fino a casa I'accompagno. Havendo adunque Nerino
chiaramente corapresa la casa, dove ella habitava, comincio vagheggiarla, ne sarebbe
passato un giorno, che egli non fusse dieci volte passato dinanzi la casa sua. Et
desiderando di parlar con lei andava imaginandosi, che via egli potesse tenere, per
laquale I'honor della donna rimanesse salvo, e egli otenesse lo intento suo. Et
havendo pensato, e ripensato, ne trovando alcun remedio, che salutifero li fusse, pur
tanto fantastico, che gli venne fatto di haver I'amicitia d'una vecchiarella, la quale
aveva la sua casa aU'incontro di quella di Genobbia. Et fattole certi presentuzzi,
e confermata la stretta amicitia, secretamente se ne andava in casa sua. Haveva
la casa di questa vecchiarella una finestra, la quale guardava nella sala della casa
di Genobbia, e per quella a suo bel agio poteva vederla andare sii, e giii per casa,
ma non voleva scoprirsi per non darle materia di non lasciarsi piu vedere. Stando
dunque Nerino ogni giorno in questo secreto vagheggiamento ; ne potendo resistere
all'ardente fiamma, che gli abbrusciava il cuore, delibero tra se stesso di scriverle
una lettera, e gettargliela in casa a tempo, che li paresse, che'l marito non fusse in
casa. Et cosi glie la getto. Et questo egli piu volte fece. Ma Genobbia senza
altrimenti leggierla, ne altro pensando, la gettava nel fuoco, e 1' abbrusciava. Et
quantunque ella havesse tal eflPetto fatto piu fiate, pur una volta le parve di aprirgliene
una, e veder quello, clie dentro si conteneva. Et apertala, e veduto come il
scrittore era Nerino figliuolo del Ee di Portogallo di lei fieramente innamorato,
stette al quanto sopra di se, ma poi considerando alia mala vita, che'l marito suo le
dava, fece buon' animo, e comincio far buona ciera a Nerino, e dato buon ordine lo
introdusse in casa, e il giovane le racconto il sonimo amore, ch'egli le portava ; e
i tormenti, che per lei ogn'hora sentiva, e parimente il modo come fusse di lei inna-
morato. Et ella, che bella, piacevole, e pietosa era il suo amore non gli nego,
Essendo dunque ambeduo d'un reciproco amore congiunti, e stando ne gli amorosi
ragionamenti, ecco maestro Eaimondo piccliiare a I'uscio. Ilche Genobbia sentendo,
fece Nerino coricarsi sopra il letto, e stese le cortine ividimorare, sino a tanto, clie'l
marito si partisse. Entrato il marito in casa e prese alcune sue cosette, senza
avedersene di cosa alcuna si parti. Et altresi fece Nerino. Venuto il giorno
seguente, e essendo Nerino in piazza a passeggiare, per aventura passa maestro
200
THE MEllRY WIVES OP AVINDSOH.
[iXTROD.
Eainioiido, a cui Ncriiio fccc di ccnno die g-li volcva ])arlare, c accostaiosi a liii, li
disse. jMesscre, noii vi ho io da dir una buona novella? Et clic disse maestro
Kainiondo? Non so io (disse Ncrino) la casa di quella bellissima Madonna ? Et
non sono io stato in piacevoli ragionanicnti con esso lei, e percio clie il suo niarito
venne a casa, ella nii njiscose nel letto, e tiro le cortine, accioclic egli vederrni non
potcsse, e subito si parti. Disse maestro Kaimondo e possibil questo? llispose
Ncrino possibile, e il vero, ne mai vidi la piu festevole, ne la piu gratiata donna di
lei. Se })cr caso messerc mio voi andaste a lei, fate, clie mi raccomandate, pregandola,
die la mi conscrvi nella sua buona gratia. A cui maestro llaimondo proinessc di
farlo, e di mala voglia da lui si parti. Ma prima disse a Nerino, gli tornarete piu ?
A cui rispose Nerino, ])cnsatel voi. Et andatosene maestro llaimondo a casa, non
volse dir cosa alcuna alia moglie, ma aspettare il tempo di ritrovarli insieme. Venuto
il giorno seguente, Nerino a Genobbia ritorno, e mentre stavano in amorosi piaceri,
e dilettevoli ragionamenti, venne a casa il marito. Ma ella subito nascose Nerino in
una cassa, a rimpctto della quale pose molte robbe, cli'ella sborrava, accio die non
si tarinassino. II marito fingendo di cercare certe sue cose, getto sottasopra tutta
la casa, e guatando sino nel letto, e nulla trovando, con piu riposato animo si parti, e
alle sue prattiche se n'ando. Et Nerino parimente si parti. Et ritrovato maestro
Rciimondo, gli disse. Signor dottore non sono io ritornato da quella gentildonna? e
la invidiosa fortuna mi ha disconzo ogni piacere, percio die il lei marito sopragiunse, e
disturbo il tutto. E come facesti disse Maestro Eaimondo? Ella (rispose Nerino) prese
una cassa, e mi puose dentro, e a rimpetto della cassa pose molte vestimenta, cli'ella
governava, che non si tarmassino. Et egli il letto sottosopra volgendo, e rivolgendo,
e nulla trovando, si parti. Quanto questa cosa tormentosa fusse a maestro
Kaimondo, pensare il puo chiunqae lia provato aniore. tiaveva Nerino a Genobbia
donato un bello e pretioso diamante, il quale dentro la legatura nell'oro liaveva
scolpito il capo, e nome suo ; e venuto il giorno, e essendo M. Raimondo andato alle
sue pratiche, Nerino fu dalla donna in casa introdotto, e stando con esso lei in
piaceri e grati ragiomenti, ecco il marito, die ritorna a casa. Ma Genobbia cattivella
veggendosi della venuta sua, immantinente aperse un scrigno grande, cli'era nella
sua camera, e dentro lo nascose. Et maestro Uainiondo entrato in casa, fingendo
di cercare certe sue cose, rivolse la camera sotto sopra, e nulla trovando, ne in letto,
ne nelle casse, come sbalordito prese il fuoco, e a tutti i quattro cantoni della
camera lo pose con deteriiiinato animo d'abbrusciar la camera, e tutto cio, die in
quella si conteneva. Gia i parieti, e travamenta cominciavano ardere, quando
Genobbia voltatasi contra il marito disse. Che vuol dir questo marito mio?
Siete forse voi divenuto pazzo ? Se pur voi volete abbrusciare la casa, brusciatela
in vostro jiiacere, ma in fede mia non abbrusciarete quel scrigno, dove sono le
scrltture ; che appartengono alia dote mia ? E fatti diiamare quattro valenti
bastagi gli fece traiiere di casa lo scrigno, e ponerlo in casa della vidua vecchiarella,
e celatamente I'apri, die niuno se n'avide, e ritornossene a casa. L'insensato
maestro llaimondo stava pur a vedere, se usciva fuori alcuno, che non gli piacesse,
ma nuUa vedeva, se non I'insopportabile fumo, e ardente fuoco, die la casa ab-
brusciava. Erano gia concorsi i vicini per estinguer il fuoco, e tanto si operarono,
die finalmente lo spensero. II giorno seguente Nerino andaiido verso il Prato
dalla Valle, in maestro Eaimondo si abbatte, e salutatolu disse, maestro mio, non vi
ho io da raccontare una cosa, che molto vi piacera ? Et che ? rispose maestro
Eaimondo. Io (disse Nerino) ho fuggito il piu spaventevole pericolo, che mai
fuggisse huomo che porti vita. Andai a casa di quella geutil madonna, e dinio-
rando con esso lei in piacevoli ragionamenti, sopragiunse il suo marito, il quale
dopo c'hebbe rivolta la casa sottosopra, accese il fuoco, e poselo in tutti i quattro
cantoni della camera, e abbruscio, cio che era in camera. Et voi (disse maestro
INTROD.]
THE MERRY WIVES OE WINDSOR.
201
Raimondo) dove eravate ? io (rispose Nerino) era nascoso nel scrigno ; che ella
fuori dicasa mando. II che maestro Raimondo intenden do, e conoscendo cio, che
egli raccontava esser il vero, da dolore, e passione si sentiva morire, ma pur non
osava scoprirsi, per cioclie desiderava di vederlo nel fatto. E dissegli. Signor
Nerino vi ritornarete voi mai piu ? a cui rispose Nerino. Haven do io scampato
il fuoco di cbe piu temenza debbo io liavere ? Hor messi da canto questi ragio-
namenti, Maestro Raimondo prego Nerino, che si degnasse di andare il giorno
seguente a desinar seco, il giovane accetto volontieri I'invito. Venuto il giorno
seguente, maestro Raimondo invito tutti e suoi parenti e quelli della moglie ancora,
e appareccliio un pomposo, e superbo prandio in un' altra bellissima casa; e comando
alia moglie, che ancor ella venisse, ma che non dovesse sedere a mensa, ma che
stesse nascosta, e preparasse quello, che faceva mestieri. Raunati adunque tutti e
parenti, e il giovane Nerino, furono posti a mensa, e maestro Raimondo con la sua
maccaronesca scienza cerco di inebriare Nerino per poter poi fare il parer suo.
La onde havendoli piu volte porto maestro Raimondo il becchiero pieno di mal-
vat'co vino, ehavendolo Nerino ogni volta bevuto, disse Maestro Raimondo. Deh
Sig. Nerino, raccontate un poco a questi parenti nostri una qualche novelluzza da
ridere. II povero giovane Nerino non sapendo, che Genobbia fusse moglie di
maestro Raimondo, comincio raccontargli I'historia, riservando pero il nome di
ciascuno. Avenne, che uno servente ando in camera dove GenolDbia dimorava, e
dissele. Madonna, se voi foste in un cantone nascosta, voi sentireste raccontar la
piu bella novella che mai udiste alia vita vostra, venite vi prego. Et andatasene in
un cantone, conobbe, che la voce era di Nerino suo amante, e che I'historia ch'egli
raccontava, a lei perteneva, E da donna prudente, e saggia tolse il diamante che
Nerino donato le haveva, e poselo in una tazza d'argento piena d'una delicata
bevanda, et disse al servente. Prendi questa tazza, e recala a Nerino, e digli che
egli la beva, che poi meglio ragionera. II servente presa la tazza, portolla a IS^erino,
e dissegli. Pigliate questa tazza, e bevete signore, che poi meglio ragionerete. Efc
egli presa la tazza beve tutto il vino, e veduto, e conosciuto il diamante che vi era
dentro lo lascio andar in bocca, e fingendo di nettarsila bocca, lo trasse fuori, e se
lo mise in dito. Et accortosi Nerino, che la beUa donna di cui ragionava, era
moglie di maestro Raimondo, piu oltre passare non volse, et stimolato da maestro
Raimondo, e da i parenti, che I'historia cominciata seguisse, egli rispose. Et si et
si canto il gallo, e subito fu di, e dal sonno risvegliato altro piu non vidi, Questo
udendo i parenti di Maestro Raimondo, e prima credendo, che tutto quello, che
Nerino gli haveva detto della moglie esser vero, trattarono I'uno, e I'altro da gran-
dissimi embriachi. Dopo alquanti giorni Nerino trovo maestro Raimondo, et
fingendo di non sapere, che egli fusse marito di Genobbia, dissegli, che fra due
giorni era per partirsi, percioche il padre scritto gli haveva, ch'al tutto tornasse nel
suo reame. Maestro Raimondo li rispose, che fusse il ben' andato. Nerino messo
secreto ordine con Genobbia, con lei se ne fuggi e in Portogallo la trasferi, dove
con somma alleo-rezza luno-amente vissero. E maestro Raimondo andatosene a
casa, e non trovata la moglie, fra pochi giorni disperato se ne mori.
(4). The tale of the two lovers ofFisa, and u-hij they icere whipt in purgatory with
nettles. — In Pisa, a famous cittie of Italye, there lived a gentleman of good linage
and landes, feared as well for his wealth, as honoured for his vertue; but, indeed,
well thought on for both: yet the better for his riches. This gentleman had one
onelye daughter, called Margaret, who for her beauty was liked of all, and desired
of many: but neither might their sutes, nor her owne, prevaile about her father's
resolution, who was determyned not to marrye her, but to such a man as should be
able in abundance to maintain the excellency of her beauty. Divers yong
gentlemen proffered large feoffments, but in vaine; a maide sliee must bee still:
n. 20
202 THE MEREY AVIYES OF AVINDSOR. [inthod.
till at last an olde doctor in the townc, tliat professed pliysicke, became a siitor to
her, w ho was a welcome man to her father, in that he was one of the welthiest
men in all Pisa. A tall strippling he was, and a proper youth, his age about
fourescore ; his lieade as w hite as milke, wherein, for olience sake, there was left
never a tooth : but it is no matter ; what he wanted in person, he had in the purse ;
which the poore gentlcwonuui little regarded, wishing rather to tie herselfe to one
that might fit her content, though they lived meanely, then to him with all the
wealth in Italye. But shee was yong, and forest to follow her father's direction,
who, u})on large covenants, w'as content his daughter should marry with the
doctor ; and whether she likte him or no, the match was made up, and in short
time she was nuirried. The poore wench was bound to the stake, and had not
onely an olde imjxjtent man, but one that was so jealous as none might enter into
his house without suspition, nor shee do any thing without blame : the least glance,
the smallest countenance, any smile, was a manifest instance to him, that shee
thought of others better then himselfe ; thus he himselfe lived in a hell, and
tormented his wife in as ill perplexitie. At last it chaunced that a young gentle-
man of the citie, comming by her house, and seeing her look out at her window,
noting her rare and excellent proportion, fell in love with her, and that so
extreamelye, as his passions had no meanes till her favour might mittigate his
heartsicke discontent. The yong man that was ignorant in amorous matters,
and had never beene used to courte anye gentlewoman, thought to reveale his
passions to some one freend that might give him counsaile for the winning of her
love ; and thinking experience was the surest maister, on a daye seeing the olde
doctor walking in the churche — that was Margaret's husband — little knowing who
he was, he thought this was the fittest man to whom he might discover his passions,
for that hee was olde and knewe much, and was a physition that w-ith his drugges
might helpe him forward in his purposes : so that, seeing the old man walke
solitary, he joinde unto him ; and, after a curteous salute, tolde him that he was to
impart a matter of great import unto him ; wherein, if hee would not onely be
secrete, but indevour to pleasure him, his pains should bee every w^ay to the full
considered. You must imagine, gentleman, quoth Mutio — for so was the doctor's
name — that men of our profession are no blabs, but hold their secrets in their
hearts' bottome ; and therefore reveale what you please, it shall not onely be con-
cealed, but cured, if either my heart or counsaile may doo it. Upon this Lionell
— so was the young gentleman called — told and discourst unto him, from point to
point, how^ he was falne in love with a gentlewoman that was maried to one of his
profession ; discovered her dwelling and the house ; and for that he was unacquainted
with the woman, and a man little experienced in love matters, he required his favour
to further him with his advise. Mutio, at this motion, was stung to the hart, knowing
it w^as his wife hee w^as fallen in love witliall; yet to conceale the matter, and to
experience his wive's chastity, and that, if she plaide false, he might be revengde
on them both, he dissembled the matter, and answered, that he knewe the woman
very well, and commended her highly; but saide she had a churle to her husband,
and therfore he thought shee would bee the more tractable. Trie her, man, quoth
hee ; fainte hart never woone faire lady; and if shee will not be brought to the
bent of your bowe, I will provide such a potion as shall dispatch all to your owne
content; and to give you further instructions for oportunitie, knowe that her
husband is foorth every afternoone from three till sixe. Thus farre I have advised
you, because I pitty your passions, as myselfe being once a lover ; but now, I charge
thee, reveale it to none whomsoever, least it doo disparage my credit to meddle in
amorous matters. The yong gentleman not onely promised all carefull secrecy,
but gave him harty thanks for his good counsell, promising to meete him there the
INTROD.]
THE MEEEY AVIVES OF WINDSOR.
203
next day, and tell him what newes. Then hee left tlie old man, who was almost
mad for feare his wife any way should play false. He saw, by experience, brave
men came to besiege the castle ; and seeing- it was in a woman's custodie, and had
so weake a governor as himselfe, he doubted it would in time be delivered up ;
which feare made him almost franti«ke, yet he drivde of the time in great torment,
till he might heare from his rival. Lionello, he hastes him home, and sutes him
in his braverye, and goes downe towards the house of Mutio, where he sees her at
her windowe, wliome he courted with a passionate looke, with such an humble
salute, as shee might perceive how the gentleman was affectionate. Margaretta,
looking earnestlye upon him, and noting the perfection of his proportion, accounted
him, in her eye, the flower of all Pisa ; Ihinkte herselfe fortunate if shee might
have him for her freend, to supply those defaultes that she found in Mutio. Sundry
times that afternoone he past by her window, and he cast not up more loving lookes
than he received gratious favours : which did so incourage him, that the next
dayp, betweene three and sixe, hee went to the house, and, knocking at the doore,
desired to speak e Avith the mistris of the house, who, hearing by her maid's
description what he was, commaunded him to come in, where she interteined him
with all courtesie. The youth that never before had given the attempt to covet a
ladye, began his exordium with a bluslie ; and yet went forward so well, that hee
discourst unto her howe hee loved her, and that, if it might please her so to accept
of his service, as of a freende ever vowde in all dutye to bee at her commaunde, the
care of her honour should bee deerer to him then his life, and hee would bee ready
to prise her discontent with his bloud at all times. The gentlewoman was a little
coye, but, before they part, they concluded that the next day, at foure of the clock,
hee shoidd come thither and eate a pound of cherries, which was resolved on with
a succado des lahras, and so, with a loath to depart, they tooke their leaves.
Lionello, as joyfull a man as might be, hyed him to the church to meete his olde
doctor, where hee found him in his olde walke. What newes, syr? quoth Mutio ;
how have you sped ? Even as I can wishe, quoth Lionello ; for I have been with
my mistrisse, and have found her so tr[a]ctable, that I hope to make the olde
peasant, her husband, looke broad-headded by a paire of browantlers. How deepe
this strooke into Mutio's hart, let them imagine that can conjecture what jelousie
is ; insomuch that the olde doctor askte when should be the time. Mary, quoth
Lionello, to-morrow at foure of the clocke in the afternoone ; and then, maister
doctor, quoth hee, will I dub the olde squire knight of the forked order. Thus
they passed on in chat, till it grew late ; and then Lyonello went home to his
lodging, and Mutio to liis house, covering all his sorrowes with a merrye coun-
tenance, with full resolution to revenge them both the next day with extremitie.
He past the night as patiently as he could, and the next daye after dinner awaye
hee went, watching when it should bee four of the clocke. At the houre justly came
Lyonello, and Avas intertained with all curtesie : but scarse had they kist, ere the
maide cried out to her mistresse that her maister was at the doore ; for he hasted,
knowing that a horne was but a litle while in grafting. Margaret, at this alarum,
was amazed : and yet, for a shifte, chopt Lyonello into a great drie-fatte full of
feathers, and sat her downe close to her woorke. By that came Mutio in blowing; and,
as though hee came to looke somewhat in haste, called for the keyes of his chambers,
and looked in everye place, searching so narrowlye in everye corner of the house, that
he left not the very privie unsearcht. Seeing he could not linde him, hee saide
nothing; but, fayning himselfe not well at ease, staide at home, so that poor Lyonello
was faine to staye in the drifatte till the olde churle Avas in bed Avith his wife; and
then the maide let him out at a backe doore, Avho went home Avith a flea in his
eare to his lodging. Well, the next day he went againe to meete his doctor,
201
THE MEHllY WIVES OF WINDSOIl.
Avhome lice ft)iind in liis woonted Avalke. AVhat ncwcs? (luotli Miitio; howe
have you sped ? A poxe of the oleic slave, quotli Lyouello ; 1 was no
sooner in, and had given my niistrisse one kisse, but the jealous asse was
at the doorc: the niaide spied him, and cryed, her maister!, so that the
l)oorc gentlewonian, for very shifte, was fainc to put me in a driefattc of
leathers that stoodc in an olde clunubcr, and there I was faine to tarrie while he
was in bed and aslcepe, and then the maide let me out, and I departed. But it is
no matter ; 'twas but a chaunce, and I ho])e to crye quittance with him ere it be
long. As how? quoth JMutio. Marry thus, quoth Liouello; she sent me woord by
her maide this daye, that, upon Thursday next, the olde churle suppeth with a
})atient of his a mile out of Pisa, and then I feare not but to quitte him for all. It
is well, (juotli jMutio; fortune bee your freende. I thaid<e you, quoth Liouello ;
and so after a little more prattle they departed. To bee shorte, Thursdaye came ;
and about sixe of the clocke foorth goes Mutio no further then a freendes house of
his, from whence hee might descrye who went into his house. Straight hee sawe
Liouello enter in; and after goes hee, insomuche that hee was scarcelye sitten
downe before the mayde cryed out agaiue, mij maister comes. The good-wife that
before had provided for afterclaps, had found out a privie place between two
seelings of a plaunclier, and there she thrust Liouello ; and her husband came
swetiug. What new^s, quoth shee, drives you home againe so soone, husband?
Marry, sweete wife, quoth he, a fearefull dreame that I had this night, which came
to my remembrance, and that was this : Methought there was a villeine that came
secretly into my house with a naked poinard in his hand, and hid himselfe ; but I
could not finde the place : with that mine nose bled, and I came backe ; and by
the grace of God, I will seeke every corner in the house for the quiet of my minde.
Marry, I pray you doo, husband, quoth she. With that he lockt in all the doors,
and began to search every chamber, every hole, every chest, every tub, the very
well; he stabd every featherbed through, and made havocke, like a mad man,
which made him thinke all was in vaine, and hee began to blame his eies that
thought they saw that which they did not. Upon this he rest halfe lunaticke, and
all night he was very wakefull; that towards the morning he fell into a dead
sleepe, and then was Liouello conveighed away. In the morning when Mutio
wakened, hee thought how by no means hee should be able to take Lyonello
tardy; yet he laid in his head a most dangerous plot, and that was this. Wife,
quoth he, I must the next Monday ride to Vycensa to visit an olde ])atient of
mine ; till my returne, which will be some ten dayes, I will have thee staye at our
little graunge house in the countrey. Marry, very well content, husband, quoth
she : with that he kist her, and was verye pleasant, as though he had suspected
nothing, and away hee flinges to the church, where he meetes Lionello. What
sir, quoth he, what newes ? Is your mistresse yours in possession ? No, a plague
of the old slave, quoth he : I think he is either a witch, or els w^oorkes by
magick : for I can no sooner enter in the doores, but he is at my backe, and so he
was againe yesternight ; for I was not warme in my seate before the maide cried,
m]/ maister comes ; and then was the poore soule faine to conveigli me betweene
two seelings of a chamber in a fit place for the purpose : wlier I laught hartely to
myself too see how he sought every corner, ransackt every tub, and stabd every
featherbed ; but in vaine, — I was safe enough till the morning, and then, when
he was fast asleepe, I lept out. Eortune frowns on you, quoth Mutio; I, but I
hope, quoth Lionello, this is the last time, and now shee will begin to smile ; for
on ^londay next he rides to Vicensa, and his wife lyes at a grange house a little of
the towne, and there in his absence I will revenge all forepassed misfortunes.
God send it be so, quoth Mutio; and so took his leave. These two lovers louged
INTEOD.]
TEE MEEEY WIVES OE AYINDSOR.
205
for Monday, and at last it came. Early in the morning jMutio horst liimsclfe, and
his wife, his maide, and a man, and no more, and away he rides to his grange
house ; where after he had brok his fast, he took his leave, and away towards
Vicensa. He rode not far ere by a false way he retm'ned into a thicket, and there
Avitli a company of cuntry peasants lay in an ambuscade to take the young gentle-
man. In the afternoon comes Lionello gallopping ; and as soon as he came
w ithin sight of the house, he sent back his horse by his boy, and went easily afoot,
and there at the very entry was entertained by Margaret, who led him up the
staires, and convaid him into her bedchamber, saying he was welcome into so mean
a cottage: but, quoth she, now I hope fortune will not envy the purity of our loves.
Alas, alas, mistris, cried the maid, heer is my maister, and 100 men with him, with
bils and staves. We are betraid, quoth Lionel, and I am but a dead man. Eeare
not, quoth she, but follow me ; and straight she carried him downe into a lowe
parlor, Avhere stoode an old rotten chest full of writinges. She put him into that,
and covered him with olde papers and evidences, and went to the gate to meet her
husband. Why, signor Mutio, what means this hurly burly, quoth she ? Vile and
shameless strumpet as thou art, thou shalt know by and by, quoth he. Where is thy
love ? All we have watcht him, and seen him enter in : now, quoth he, shal neither
thy tub of feathers, nor thy seeling serve, for perish he shall with fire, or els fall into
my hands. Doo thy woorst, jealous foole, quoth she ; I ask thee no favour. With
that in a rage he beset the house round, and then set fire on it. Oh ! in what a
perplexitie was poore Lionello, that was shut in a chest, and the fire about his eares?
And how was Margaret passionat, that knew her lover in such danger ! Yet she
made light of the matter, and as one in a rage called her maid to her and said : Come
on, wench ; seeing thy maister mad with jelousie hath set the house and al my living
on fire, I will be revengd upon him ; help me heer to lift this old chest where
all his w'ritings and deeds are ; let that burne first ; and as soon as I see that one
fire, I will walk towards my freends, for the old foole will be beggard, and I will
refuse him. Mutio, that knew al his obligations and statutes lay there, puld her
back, and bad two of his men carry the chest into the feeld, and see it were safe ;
himself standing by and seeing his house burnd downe, sticke and stone. Then
quieted in his minde, he went home with his wife, and began to flatter her, thinking
assuredly that he had burnd her paramour ; causing his chest to be carried in a
cart to his house at Pisa. Margaret impatient went to her mother's, and com-
plained to her and to her brethern of the jealousie of her husband ; who maintained
her it be true, and desired but a dales respite to proove it. Wei, hee was bidden
to supper the next night at her mother's, she thinking to make her daughter and
him frends againe. In the meane time, he to his woonted walk in the church, and
there propter expectationem he found Lionello walking. Wondring at this, he
straight enquires, what newes ? AVhat newes, maister doctor, quoth he, and he fell
in a great laughing : in faith yesterday I scapt a scouring ; for, syrrha, I went to
the grange house, where I was appointed to come, and I was no sooner gotten up
the chamber, but the magicall villeine her husband beset the house with bils and
staves, and that he might be sure no seeling nor corner should shrowde me, he
set the house on fire, and so burnt it down to the ground. Why, quoth Mutio,
and how did you escape? Alas, quoth he, wel fare a woman's wit! She con-
veighed me into an old chest ful of writings, which slie knew her husband durst
not burne ; and so was I saved and brought to Pisa, and yesternight by her maide
let home to my lodging. This, quoth he, is the pleasantest jest that ever I heard ;
and upon this I have a sute to you. I am this night bidden foorth to su])per ; you
shall be my guest : onelye I will crave so much favour, as after supper for a
pleasant sporte to make relation what successe you have had in your loves. Eor
200
THE MEIUIY AVIVES OE WINDSOR.
[iNTROD.
that I will not siicko, qnoilie he ; and so ho caricd Lioncllo to his motlicr-iii-lawes
house with him, aiul discovered to his wives brethren who he was, and how at
supper he would disclose the whole matter : for, quoth he, he knowes not that I am
IMarg'arets husband. At this all the brethren bad him welcome, and so did the
mother to ; and J\[arg-aret she was kept out of sii>-ht. Su})])cr-time being come, they
fell to their victals, and Lionello was carrowst nnto by Mutio, who was very
pleasant, to draw him to a merry humor, that he might to the ful discourse the
etfect and fortunes of his love. Sn])per being- ended, Mutio requested him to tel
to the gentleman what had hapncd between him and his mistresse. Lionello with
a smiling countenance began to describe his mistresse, the house and street where
she dwelt, how he fell in love with her, and how he used the counsell of this
(loctor, who in al his aflPaires was his secretarye. Margaret heard all this with a
greate feare ; and when he came at the last point, she caused a cup of wine to be
given him by one of her sisters, wherein was a ring that he had given Margaret.
As he had told how he escapt burning, and was ready to confirme all for a troth,
the gentlewoman drunke to him ; who, taking the cup, and seing the ring, having
a quick wit and a reaching head, spide the fetch, and perceived that all this while
this was his lovers husband, to whome bee had revealed these escapes. At this
drinking the wine, and swallowing the ring into his mouth, he went forward :
Gentlemen, quoth he, how like you of my loves and my fortunes? Wei, quoth
the gentlemen ; I pray you is it true ? As true, quoth he, as if I would be so
simple as to reveal what I did to Margaret's husband : for know you, gentlemen,
that I knew this Mutio to be her husband whom I notified to be my lover ; and
for that he was generally known through Pisa to be a jealous fool, therefore with
these tales I brought him into this paradice, which indeed are follies of mine own
braine ; for trust me, by the faith of a gentleman, I never spake to the woman, was
never in her com])anye, neither doo I know her if I see her. At this they all fell
in a laughing at Mutio, who was ashamde that Lionello had so scoft him : but all
was well — they were made friends ; but the jest went so to his hart, that he
shortly after died, and Lionello enjoyed the ladye : and for that they two were the
death of the old man, now are they plagued in purgatory, and he whips them with
nettles.
(5). InBologna nobilissima citta diLombardia, madre de gli studi, e accommodata
di tutte le cose, che si convengono, ritrovavasi uuo scolare gentil'huomo Cretense,
il cui nome era Eilenio Sisterna, giovane leggiadro, e amorevole. Avenue, che in
Bologna si fece una bella, e magnifica festa, alia quale furono invitate molte donne
delta citta, e delle piu belle, e vi concorsero molti gentil'huomini Bolognesi, e
scolari, tra'quali vi era Eilenio. Costui (si come e usanza de'giovani) vagheggiando
hora I'una, e hora I'altra donna, e tutte molto piacendogii, dispose al tutto voter
carolar con una d'esse. Et accostatosi ad una, che Emerentiana si chiamava, moglie
di Messer Lamberto Bentivogli; la chiese in ballo. Et ella, ch'era gentile; e non men
ardita, che bella, non lo rifiuto. Eilenio adunque con lento passo menando il ballo,
e alle volte stringendole la mano con bassa voce, cosi le disse. Valorosa donna tanta
e la bellezza vostra, che senza alcun fallo quella trapassa ogni altra, ch'io vedessi
giamai. Et non vi e donna a cui cotanto amore io porti, quanto alia vostra
altezza, la quale se mi corrispondera nell'amore, terrommi il piu contento, e il piu
felice huomo, che si truovi al mondo, ma altrimenti facendo, tosto vedrammi di
vita privo, e ella ne sara stata della mia morte cagione. Amandovi adunque io
Signora mia, com'io fo, e e il debito mio, voi mi prendete per vostro servo,
disponendo e di me, e delle cose mie (quantunque picciole sieno) come delle
vostre proprie, e gratia maggiore dal cielo ricevere non potrei, che di venir suggetto
a tanta donna, la quale come uccello mi ha preso nell'amorosa pania. Emerentiana,
iNTEOD.] THE MERRY WIVES OE WINDSOR.
207
chc attentamente ascoltate haveva le dolci, e graliose parole, come persona prudente
finse di non haver oreccliie, e nulla rispose. Einito il ballo, e andatasi Emeren-
tiana a sedere, il giovane Eilenio prese un'altra matrona per mano, e con essa lei
comincio a ballare, ne appena egli haveva principiata la danza, che con lei si mise
in tal maniera a parlare. Certo non fa mestieri gentilissima madonna, che io con
parole vi dimostri, quanto, e quale sia il fervido amore, ch'io vi porto, e portero,
fin che questo spirito vitale reggera queste deboli membra, e infelici ossa. Et
felice, anzi beato mi terrei allora, quando io vi avessi per mia patrona, anzi singolar
Signora. Amandovi adunque io, si come io vi amo, e essendo io vostro si come
voi agevolmente potete intendere, non harrete a sdegno di ricevermi per vostro
humilissimo servitore, percio die ogni inio bene, e ogni mia vita da voi, e non
altronde dipende. La giovane donna, che Panthemia si chiamava, quantunque
intendesse il tutto, non pero li rispose, ma la danza honestamente segui, e finito il
ballo sorridendo alquanto si pose con le altre a sedere. Non stette molto, die
I'innamorato Eilenio prese la terza per mano, la piu gentile, la piu aggratiata, e la
piu bella donna, che in Bologna allora si trovasse, e con esso lei comincio nienare
una danza, facendosi far calle a coloro, che s'appressavano per rimirarla, e innanzi
che si terminasse il ballo, egli le disse tai parole. Honestissima madonna, forse io
parero non poco prosontuoso, scoprendovi hora il celato amore, ch'io vi portai, e
hora porto ; ma non incolpate me, ma la vostra bellezza, la quale a ciascuna altra
vi fa superiore, e me come vostro mancipio tiene. Taccio hora i vostri laudevoli
costumi, taccio le egregie, e ammirabili vostre virtii, le quali sono tali, e tante,
c'hanno forza di far discender giii da I'alto cielo i superni Dei. Se adunque la
vostra bellezza accolta per natura, e non per arte aggradisce a gTimmortali Dei,
non e maraviglia, se quella mi stringe ad amarvi, e tenervi chiusa nelle viscere del
mio cuore. Eregovi adunque, gentil Signora mia, unico refrigerio della mia vita,
c'habbiate caro colui, che per voi mille volte al giorno muore. II che facendo, io
reputero haver la vita per voi, alia cui gratia mi raccommando. La bella donna,
die Sinfrosia s'appellava, havendo intese le care, e dolci parole, che dal foco.-.o
cuore di Eilenio uscivano, non puote alcuno sospiretto nascondere, ma pur con-
siderando I'honor suo, e che era maritata, niuna risposta li diede, ma finito il
ballo, se n'ando al suo luogo a sedere. Essendo tutte tre una appresso I'altra
quasi in cerchio a sedere, e intertenendosi in piacevoli ragionamenti, Emerentiana
moglie di messer Lamberto non gia a fine di male, ma burlando disse alle due
compagne. Donne mie care, non vi ho io da raccontare una piacevolezza, che mi
e avenuta hoggi ? Et che? dissero le compagne. Io (disse Emerentiana) mi ho
trovato carolando un'innamorato, il piu bello, il piu leggiadro, e il piu gentile, che
si possa trovare. II qual disse esser si acceso di me per la mia bellezza, che ne
giorno, ne notte non trova riposo, e puntalmente le racconto tutto cio, ch'egli
haveva detto. Ilche intendendo Panthemia, e Sinforosia, dissero quel medesimo
essere avenuto a loro, e dalla festa non si partirono, che agevolmente connobbero
un'istesso esser stato colui ; die con tutte tre haveva fatto 1' amore. II perclie
chiaramente compresero, che quelle parole dell'innamorato non da fede amorosa,
ma da folic, e fittitio amore procedavano, e a sue parole prestarono quella credeuza,
che prestare si suole a'sogni de gVinfermi, o a fola di roraanzi. Et indi non si
partirono, che tutte tre concordi si dierono la iede di operare si, che ciascheduna
di loro da per se li farebbe una beffa, e di tal sorte, die I'innamorato si ricorde-
rebbe sempre, che anche le donne sanno beffare. Continovando Eilenio in far
I'amore quando con una, quando con I'altra, e vedendo, che ciascheduna di loro
faceva sembiante di volerli bene, si mise in cuore (se possibile era) di ottenere da
ciascheduna di loro I'ultimo frutto d'amore, ma non li venne fatto, si come egli
bramava, e era il desiderio suo, percioclie fu perturbato ogni suo disegno.
208
THE MEIUIY AVIVES OE AVINDSOU.
[iNTROD.
Emcrentiana, clie non poteva soffcrirc il fittitio amore del sciocco scolarc, cliianio
una sua raiiticclla assai piacevoletta, c bella, c le impose, cirella dovcsse con bel
niodo parlare con Eilenio, e is])oncrli 1' amore, die sua madonna li portava, e
(juando li fusse a ])iacere, ella una notte vorrebbe esser con esso lui in la propria
casa. Ilclie intondcndo Eilenio s'allcgTO, e disse alia fante, va, e ritorna a casa,
e raccomandami a tua madonna, e dille da parte mia, clie questa sera la mi
aspelti, g'ia che'l marito suo non alberga in casa. In tpiesto mezzo Emerentiana
fece raccog-licre molti fasciolli di })ungenti spine, e poscli sotto la lettiera, dove la
notte g-iaceva, e stette ad aspettare, clie lo amante venisse. Venuta la notte
Eilenio prese la spada, e soletto se n'ando alia casa della sua nemica, e datole il
segno, fu tostamente aperto. E dopo, c'hebbero insieme ragionato al(pianto,
e lautamente cenato ambe duo andarono in camera per riposare. Eilenio
appena si liaveva spogliato per girsene al letto, che soi)ragiunse messer Lamberto
suo marito. II clie intendendo la donna, finse di smarrirsi ; e non sapendo, dove
I'amante nascondere, gli ordino, clie sotto il letto se n'andasse. Eilenio veggendo
il pericolo suo, e della donna, senza mettersi alcun vestimento in dosso, ma solo
con la camiscia corse sotto la lettiera, e cosi fieramente si ponse, che non era parte
venina del suo corpo, cominciando dal capo insino a'piedi, che non gettasse sangue.
Et quanto piu egli in quel scuro voleva difendersi dalle s])ine, tanto mag-giormente
si pungeva, e non ardiva gridare, accioche messer Lamberto non I'udisse, e
uccidesse. lo lascio considerar a voi, a che termine quella notte si ritrovasse il
miserello, il quale poco manco, clie senza coda non restasse, si come era rimasto
senza favella. Venuto il giorno, e partitosi il marito di casa, il povero scolare
meglio ch'egli puote si rivesti, e cosi sangninoso a casa se ne torno, e stette con
un picciolo spavento di morte. Ma curato diligentemente dal medico si rihebbe,
e ricupero la pristina salute. Non passarono molti giorni, che Eilenio segui il suo
innamoramento, facendo I'amore con I'altre due, cioe con Panthemia, e Sinforosia,
e tanto fece, che hebbe agio di parlare una sera con Panthemia, alia quale
racconto i suoi lunghi afFanni, e continovi tormenti, e pregolla, che di lui pieta
haver dovesse. L'astuta Panthemia, fingendo haverli compassione, si iscusava di
non haver il modo di poterlo accontentare, ma pur al fine vinta da suoi dolci preghi,
e cocenti sospiri lo introdusse in casa. Essendo gia spogliato per andarsene a
letto con esso lei, Panthemia li comando, che andasse nel camerino ivi vicino, ove
ella teneva le sue acque nanfe, e profumate, e che prima molto bene si profumasse,
e poi se n'andasse al letto. II scolare non s'avedendo dell'astutia della malvagia
donna, entro nel camerino, e posto il piede sopra una tavola diffitta dal travicello,
che la sosteneva, senza potersi ritenere insieme con la tavola cadde giu in un
magazzino terreno, nel quale alcuni mercatanti tenevano bambagia, e lane. Et
(juantunque da alto cadesse, niuno pero male si fece nella caduta. Eitrovandosi
adunque lo scolare in quello oscuro luogo, comincio a brancolare, se scala, o uscio
trovasse, ma nulla trovando, malediceva I'hora, e'l punto, che Panthemia conosciuta
havea. Venuta I'aurora, e tardi accortosi il miserello dell'inganno della donna,
vide in una parte del magazzino certe fissure nelle mura, che alquanto rendevano
di luce, e per essere antiche, e gramose di fastidiosa muff'a, egli comincio con
maravigliosa forza cavar le pietre, ove men forti pare^ ano, e tanto cavo, ch'egli fece
un pertugio si grande, che per quello fuori se ne usci. Et trovandosi una calle
non molto lontana daUa publica strada, cosi scalzo, e in camiscia prese il camino
verso il suo albergo, e senza esser da alcuno conosciuto, entro in casa. Sinforosia,
che gia hayea intesa I'una, e I'altra befi^'a fatta a Eilenio, s'ingegno di farli la terza,
non minore delle due. E cominciollo con la coda dell'occhio, quand'ella lo vedea
guatare, dimostrandoli, ch'ella si consuraava per lui. Lo scolare, gia domenticato
deUe passate ingiurie, comincio a passeggiare dinanzi la casa di costei, facendo il
iNTROD.] THE MEERY WIVES OF WINDSOE.
209
passionato. Sinforosia avedenclosi lui esser gia del suo amore oltre misura acceso,
li mando per una vecchiarella una lettera, per laquale li dimostro, ch'egli con la
sua bellezza, e gentil costumi I'havea si fieramente presa, e legata, ch'ella non
trovava riposo ne di, ne notte, e percio, quando a lui fusse a grado, ella desiderava
piu clie ogni altra cosa, di poter con esso lui favellare. Filenio presa la lettera, e
inteso il tenore, e non considerato I'inganno, e dismenticatosi delle passate ingiurie,
fu il piu lieto, e consolato huomo, che mai si trovasse. Et presa la carta, e la penna
le rispose, che se ella lo amava, e sentiva per lui tormento, die egli il medesimo
sentiva, e clie di gran lunga amava piu lei, che ella lui ; e ad ogni hora, clie a
lei paresse, egli era a' suoi servigi, e comandi. Letta la risposta, e trovata la oppor-
tunita del tempo, Sinforosia lo fece venir in casa, e dopo molti finti sospiri, li disse.
Eilenio mio, non so qual altro, che tu, mi havesse mai condotta a questo passo, al
quale condotta mi hai. Impercio che la tua bellezza, la tua leggiadria, e il tuo
parlare mi ha posto tal fuoco nell'anima, che come secco legno mi sento abbrusciare.
Ilche sentendo lo scolare, teneva per certo, ch'eUa tutta si struggesse per suo amore.
Dimorando adunque il cattivello con Sinforosia in dolci, e dilettevoli ragionamenti,
e parendogli homai I'hora di andarsene al letto, e coricarsi a lato a lei, disse Sin-
forosia. Anima mia dolce innanzi che noi andiamo a letto, mi pare convenevole cosa,
che noi ci riconfortiamo alquanto, e presolo per la mano lo condusse in un camerino
ivi vicino, dove era una tavola apparecchiata con preciosi confetti, e ottimi vini.
Havea la sagace donna alloppiato il vino per far, che egli si addormentasse sin'a
certo tempo. Eilenio prese il bicchiere, e lo empi di quel vino, e non avedendosi
dell'inganno, intieramente lo beve. Eestaurati li spiriti, e bagnatosi con acqua
nanfa, e ben profumatosi, se n'ando a letto. Non stette guari, che'l liquore opero
la sua virtii, e il giovane si profondamente s'addormento, che'l grave tuono dell'ar-
tiglierie malagevolmente destato I'havrebbe. La onde Sinforosia vedendo, ch'egli
dirottamente dormiva, e il liquore la sua operatione ottimamente dimostrava, si
parti e chiamo una sua fante giovane, et gagliarda, che del fatto era consapevole, e
amendue per le mani, e per li piedi presero lo scolare, e chetamente a])erto I'uscio
lo raisero sopra la strada, tanto lungi di casa, quanto sarebbe un buon tratto di
pietra. Era cerca un' hora innanzi che spuntasse I'aurora, quando il liquore perde
la sua virtii, e il miserello si desto, e credendo egli esser a lato di Sinforosia, si trovo
scalzo, e in camiscia, mezo morto di freddo giacere sopra la nuda terra. II poA^erello
quasi perduto delle braccia, e delle gambe appena si puote levare in piedi, ma pur
con gran malagevolezza levatosi, e non potendo quasi aflFermarsi in piedi, meglio
ch'egli puote, e seppe, senza esser da alcuii veduto, al suo albergo ritorno, e alia sua
salute provede. Et se non fusse stata la giovanezza, che I'aiuto, certamente egli
sarebbe rimaso attratto de'nervi.
It will be perceived that, in the last tale, there is no trace
of the buck-basket, nor can it be supposed to have suggested
any circumstance beyond that of a person making love to more
than one lady at the same time. The other stories are more to
the purpose; but the most widely-drawn conclusion would only
lead us to believe that Shakespeare adopted the incident of a
man relating: his intended intrio-ues to the lady's husband ; the
curious stratagem of the buck-basket ; and the double courtship,
from old tales of the day, probably from Tarlton's Newes out of
Purgatorie, and from other early English versions of the Italian
narratives. All the conduct of the story of the ^lerry AYivcs of
II. ' 27
210
THE MEEUY WIVES OF WINDSOU.
[iNTKOD.
AViiulsor, appears to be original. ^laloiie refers to a tale in
Westward for Smelts, 4to. 1()2(), 'the Fishwife's Tale of
Brainford,' which he imagines may have been read by Shake-
speare in some early impression of that work, and whieli indueed
him to lav the seene of Falstaff s love adventures at Windsor.
This pieee eonnnences as follows : — "In Windsor, not long agoe,
dwelt a sumpter man, who had to wife a very faire (but some-
thing wanton) creature, over whom (not without cause) he was
something jealous, yet had bee never any proofe of her incon-
stancie ; but he feared he was, or should be a cuckold, and
therefore prevented it so much as he could by restraining her
libertie." There is nothing whatever, in the story itself, in any
way analogous to the incidents of the present comedy.
The earliest notice of the Merry Wives of Windsor, that has
yet been met with, occurs in the Books of the Stationers'
Company: — "18 Jan., 1601-2. — John Busby.] An excellent and
pleasant conceited Commedie of Sir John Faulstof, and the
Merry Wyves of Windesor. — Arth. Johnson.] By assignment
from John Busbye a book. An excellent and pleasant conceited
comedie of Sir John Faulstafe and the mery wyves of Windsor."'
This John Busby, a stationer, was partner with Millington in tlie
surreptitious edition of Henry the Fifth, and there seems every
reason for supposing that the copy of the Merry Wives, here
referred to, was obtained in an indirect manner. It was, how-
ever, printed by Thomas Creede for Arthur Johnson in the year
1602, under the title of, — "A Most pleasaunt and excellent con-
ceited Comedie, of Syr lo/tii Falsfaffe, and the merrie Wines of
TVindsor. Entermixed w itli sundrie variable and pleasing humors
of Syr Hu(jh the Welch Knight, lustice Shallow, and his wise
Cousin M. Slender. With the swaggering vaine of Auncient
Pistoll, and CorporaU Ni/m. By JVUlimn Shakespeare. As it hath
bene diners times Acted by the right Honorable my Lord
Chamberlaines seruants, Both before her Maiestie, and else-
where. London — Printed by T. C. for Arthur lohnson, and
are to be sold at his shop in Powles Church-yard, at the signe of
the Flower de Leuse and the Crowne. 1602." A reprint of
this edition, with a few trifling variations, and also having the
name of Shakespeare on the title-page, was "printed for Arthur
Johnson" in the year 1619.
There cannot be the slig-htest hesitation in admittino; tlie
general opinion that Johnson's editions were piratically published,
in whatever point of view they are regarded ; whether as copies
Id
-O o
O c
^5"
'^1
c
0*
»4
INTROD.]
THE MEERY WIVES OF WINDSOE.
211
of the first sketch of Shakespeare's comedy as it proceeded from
the author himself, or merely as imperfect versions of the play
as it was afterwards printed in the first folio. For several years,
I adopted the opinion, so ably supported by Mr. Knight, in favor
of Johnson's quarto being a transcript of the poet's first draught
of the comedy; but subsequent research has convinced me that
this view of the subject is liable to great doubt, and that this
early edition must be considered in the light of an unfair and
fragmentary copy of the perfect drama, possessing, in all pro-
bal)ility, unauthorized additions from the pen of some other
writer. The quarto is not, indeed, in any respect, a regular
performance, even if it were considered as a copy of a very hasty
and imperfect original. In the latter case, there would surely
be found passages worthy of Shakespeare's pen, adapted solely
to that original, and intentionally omitted in a reconstruction of
the play; but, instead of this, the quarto consists for the most
part of merely imperfect transcripts, not sketches, of speeclies to
be found in the perfect drama. The few scenes in the quarto,
which are peculiar to itself, are of a very inferior power, and it
would be difficult to imagine that they could have been written
by the great dramatist. One of these scenes, where Falstali' is
tormented by the pretended fairies in Windsor Park, the most
favorable of the portions which are clearly derived from another
source, exhibits few if any traces of the hand of a distinguished
poet. As for the other original fragments in the quarto, they
are scarcely worthy of serious consideration; and some of the
lines in them are poor and despicable.
So many deceptions were practised by the booksellers in
Shakespeare's day, it would be very difficult to decide positively
respecting the exact position to be assigned to Johnson's piratical
edition of the Merry Wives. Without entering too deeply into
the regions of conjecture, it may fairly be presumed tliat the
copy was taken either from notes made at the theatre, or from
the imperfect memoranda of one of the actors. With respect to
the original portions, our opinion as to those must rest solely on
conjecture. There are, I think, indications to be traced in
them, showing that the editor, whoever he might have been,
was fully acquainted with Shakespeare's play of Henry IV.,
several phrases being evidently borrowed from it. "When Pistol
lies, do this," is a line found in Jolmson's quarto and in Henry IV.,
but not in the perfect copy of the Merry Wives. The same
may also be said of such expressions as icoolsack and wiqmtij, as
THE MEUllY AVIVES OF WINDSOK.
[iNTROD.
applied to Falstaff, neither of wliieli are to be traced in tlie first
folio. Sometimes, also, Shakespeare's own expressions are
employed in wron<>- places, to suit the editor's purpose; and over-
si«»;hts, some of the greatest magnitude, occur in nearly every
page. The succession of scenes, however, is exactly the same
as in the amended play, although not so divided, with the
exception of the fourth and fifth scenes of the third act, which
are trans])osed. The first scene of the fourth act, and the first
four scenes of the fifth act in the amended play, are entirely
omitted in the quarto.
xVmongst the numerous indications of the quarto being an
imperfect publication, the reader's attention may be drawn to
the second stage direction, in which Bardolph is introduced, as
in the amended play; whereas he is there entirely omitted in
the business of the scene ; and to the incident of the Doctor's
sending a challenge to Evans being altogether inexplicable,
without the assistance derived from the more perfect version.
Several other speeches and devices are of so extremely an
inartificial and trivial a character, it can scarcely be imagined
but that some very inferior hand was concerned with their
production. The reprint of Johnson's edition of 1602, Avhich
now follows, will render any further discussion of the subject
unnecessary. It is a small quarto volume, of excessive rarity,
only four copies being known to exist ; and it is carelessly
printed, in a large type, evidently being produced hastily for the
purposes of sale. ]Most of the prose is printed as if it were
blank verse, an arrangement not followed here, for the sake of
the space ; but the capital letters, indicating the commencement
of the lines, are preserved as in the original. The various
readings of the quarto of 1619, which appear to be worthy of
remark, are noticed in parentheses.
A Pleasant Conceited Comedie, of Syr John Falstaffe, and the Merry JVives of
Windsor.
Enter Justice Shallow, Syr Hugh, Maisteb, Page, and Slender.
Shal. jSTere talke to me, He make a star-chamber matter of it. The Councell
shall know it.
Pag. Nay good maister Shallow be perswaded by mee.
Slen. Nay surely my uncle shall not put it up so.
Sir IIii. Wil you not heare reasons, M. Slenders ? You should heare reasons.
Shal. Tho he be a knight, he shall not thinke to carrie it so away. M. Page,
I will not be wronged. Eor you Syr, I love you, and for my cousen He comes to
lookc upon your daughter.
INTROD.]
THE MEEEY WIVES OE WINDSOR.
213
Pa. And heres my hand, and if my daughter Like him so well as I, wee'l
quickly have it a match : In the meane time let me intreat you to sojourne Here a
while. And on my life He undertake To make you friends.
Sir Ru. I pray you M. Shallowes, let it be so. The matter is pud to arbi-
tarments. The first man is M. Page, videlicet M. Page. The second is my selfe,
videlicet my selfe. And the third and last man, is mine host of the gartyr. [U/iter
Syr John Falstapfe, Pistoll, BAUDOLrE, and Nim.] Here is Sir John himselfe
now, looke you.
Fal. Now M. Shallow, youle complaine of me to the Councell, I heare ?
Shal. Sir John, Sir John, you have hurt my keeper, kild my dogs, stolne my
deere.
Fal. But not kissed your keepers daughter.
Shal. Well this shall be answered.
Fal. He answere it straight. I have done all this. This is now answred.
Shal. Well, the Councell shall know it.
Fal. Twere better for you twere knowne in counsell, Youle be laught at.
Sir Hu. Good urdes Sir John, good urdes.
Fal. Good urdes, good Cabidge. Slender, I brake your head. What matter
have you against mee ?
Slen. I have matter in my head against you and your cogging companions,
Pistoll and Nym. They carried mee to the Taverne and made mee drunke, and
afterward picked my pocket.
Fal. What say you to this, Pistoll? did you picke Maister Slenders purse,
Pistoll?
Slen. I by this handkercher did he. Two faire shovell boord shillings, besides
seven groats in mill sixpences.
Fal. What say you to this, Pistoll ?
Fist. Sir John, and Maister mine, I combat crave
Of this same laten bilbo. I do retort the lie
Even in thy gorge, thy gorge, thy gorge.
Slen. By this light it was he then.
Nym. Syr my honor is not for many words, But if you run bace humors of me,
I will say mary trap. And there's the humor of it.
Fal. You heare these matters denide gentlemen. You heare it.
Enter Mistresse Eooed, Mistresse Page, and her daughter Anne. — Fa. No
more now, I thinke it be almost dinner-time, Eor my wife is come to meet us.
Fal. Mistresse Eoord, I thinke your name is. If I mistake not. [Syr John
Msses her.]
Mis. Ford. Your mistake sir is nothing but in the Mistresse. But my husbands
name is Eoord, sir.
Fal. I shall desire your more acquaintance. The like of you good misteris
Page.
• Mis. Fa. With all my hart sir John. Come husband will you goe ? Dinner
staies for us.
Fa. With all my hart, come along Gentlemen. \Fajit all, but Slender 'and
mistresse Anne.]
Anne. Now forsooth why do you stay me? What would you with me?
Slen. Nay for my owne part, I would litle or nothing with you, I love you
well, and my uncle can tell you how my living stands. And if you can love me
why so. If not, why then happie man be his dole.
An. You say well M. Slender. But first you must give me leave to Be ac-
quainted with your humor, And afterward to love you if I can.
214
THE MEllIlY WIVES OE WINDSOR.
[iNTROD.
S/cn. Why by God, there's never a man in christendome can desire more.
What have you Bcares in your Towne, mistresse Anne, your dogs barke so?
An. I cannot tell M. Slender, I thinke there be.
Sieti. Ila how say you? I warrant your afeard of a Beare let loose, are
you not?
J/K Yes trust me.
S/en. Now that's meate and drinke to me. He run yon {this word omitted in
ed. 1010) to a Beare, and take her by the mussell, You never saw the like. But
indeed I cannot blame you, Eor they are marvellous rough things.
An. Will you goe in to dinner, M. Slender ? The meate stales for you.
Slen. No faith not I. I thanke you, I cannot abide the smell of hot meate
Nere since I broke my shin. He tel you how it came By my troth. A Fencer and
I plaid three venies Eor a dish of stewd prunes, and I w ith my ward Defending my
head, he hot [liit, ed. 1619) my shin. Yes faith.
Enter Maister Page. — Fa. Come, come Maister Slender, dinner staies
for you.
Sleti. I can eate no meate, I thanke you.
Fa. Y^ou shall not choose I say.
Slen. He follow you sir, pray leade the way. Nay be God misteris Anne, you
shall goe first, I have more manners then so, I hope.
An. Well sir, I will not be troublesome. \Exit omnes.
Enter Sir Hugh and Simple, from dinner. — Sir IIu. Hark you Simple, pray
you beare this letter to Doctor Cayus house, the Erench Doctor. He is twell up
along the street, and enquire of his house for one mistris Quickly, his woman, or
his try nurse, and deliver this Letter to her, it tis about Maister Slender. Looke
you, will you do it now?
Sim. I warrant you Sir.
Sir Hii. Pray you do, I must not be absent at the grace. I will goe
make an end of my dinner. There is pepions and cheese behinde. \Exit omnes.
Enter Sir John Ealstaffes, Host of the Garter, Ntm, Bardolee, Pistoll,
and the Jjoy. — Fat. Mine Host of the Garter.
Host. What ses my bully Rooke? Speake schoUerly and wisely.
Fat. Mine Host, I must turne away some of my followers.
Host. Discard bully, Hercules cassire. Let them wag, trot, trot.
Fat. I sit at ten pound a weeke.
Host. Thou art an Emperour Csesar, Phesser and Kesar bully. He entertaine
BardoHe. He shall tap, he shall draw. Said I well, bully Hector ?
Fal. Do good mine Host.
Host. I have spoke. Let him follow. Bardolfe, Let me see thee froth, and
lyme. I am at A word. Follow, follow. [Exit Host.
Fal. Do Bardolfe, a Tapster is a good trade, An old cloake will make a new
Jerkin, A withered servingman, a fresh Tapster : Follow him Bardolfe.
Bar. I will sir, He warrant you He make a good shift to live. [Exit Bardolee.
Fis. O bace gongarian wight, Avilt thou the spicket willd ?
Xym. His minde is not heroick. And theres the humor of it.
Fal. WeU my Laddes, I am almost out at the heeles.
Fis. Why then let cybes insue.
Kijm. I thanke thee for that humor.
Fal. Well I am glad I am so rid of this tinder Boy. His stealth was too
open, his filching was like An unskilful! singer, he kept not time.
Njjm. The good humor is to steale at a minutes rest.
Fis. Tis so indeed Nym, thou hast hit it right.
iN-TROD.] THE MEERY WIVES OF WINDSOE. 215
Fal. WeU, afore God, I must cheat, I must conycatch. Which of you knowes
Eoord of this Towne ?
Pis. I ken the wight, he is of substance good.
Fal. Well my honest lads. He tell you what I am about.
Fis. Two yards and more.
Fal. No gibes now PistoU : indeed I am two yards In the wast, but now I am
about no wast : Briefly, I am about thrift you rogues you, I do intend to make
love to Foords wife, I espie entertainment in her, She carves, she Discourses.
She gives the lyre of invitation. And every part to be constured rightly is, I am
Syr John Falstafi'es.
Fis. He hath studied her well, out of honestie Into English.
Fal. Now the report goes, she hath all the rule Of her husbands purse. She
hath legians of angels.
Fis. As many divels attend her. And to her boy say I.
Fal. Heree's a Letter to her. Heeres another to misteris Page, Who even now
gave me good eies too, examined my exteriors with such a greedy intention, with
the bearaes of her beautie, that it seemed as she would a scorged me up like a
burning glasse. Here is another Letter to her, shee beares the purse too. They
shall be Exclieckers to me, and He be cheaters to them both. They shall be my
East and West Indies, and He trade to them both. Heere beare thou this Letter
to Mistresse Foord. And thou this to mistresse Page. Weele thrive. Lads, we
will thrive.
Fist. Shall I sir Panderowes of Troy become?
And by my sword were Steele. Then Lucifer take all.
Nym. Here take your humor Letter againe. For my part, I will keepe the
havior Of reputation. And theres the humor of it.
Fal. Here sirrha beare me these Letters titely,
Saile like my pinnice to the golden shores :
Hence slaves, avant. Vanish like hailstones, goe.
Falstaffe will learne the humor of this age,
French thrift you rogue, my selfe and scirted Page. \Exit Falstatte, and the Boy.
Fis. And art thou gone? Teaster He have in pouch
When thou shalt want, bace Phrygian Turke.
Nym. I have operations in my head, which are humors of revenge.
Fis. Wilt thou revenge?
Nym. By Welkin and her Fairies.
Fis. By wit, or sword
Nym. With both the humors I will disclose this love to Page. He poses him
with Jallowes, And theres the humor of it.
Fis. And I to Foord will likewise teU
How Falstaffe varlot vilde,
Would have her love, his dove would prove,
And eke his bed defile.
Nym. Let us about it then.
Fis. He second thee : sir Corporall Nym troope on. [^Exit om/ws. '
Enter Mistresse Quickly, and Simple. — Quic. M. Slender is your Masters
name say you ?
Sim. I indeed that is his name.
Quic. How say you ? I take it hee is somewhat a weakly man : And he has as
it were a whay coloured beard.
Sim. Indeed my maisters beard is kane colored.
Quic. Kane colour, you say well. And is this letter from Sir Yon, about
Misteris An, Is it not ?
21G
THE MEEEY WIVES OE WINDSOR.
[iNTROD.
Sim. I indeed is it.
Qnic. So : and yonr Maister would have me as it twerc to speak to misteris
Anne concerning liini : I promise you niy M. hatli a great affectioned mind to
niistresse Anne liimselfe. And if he should know that I should as they say, give
my verdit for any one but liimselfe, I should lieare of it throughly: Eor I tell you
friend, he puts all his privities in me.
Sim. I by my faith you are a good staie to him.
Quic. Am I? I and you knew all yowd say so: Washing, brewing, baking, all
goes through my hands, Or else it would be but a woe house.
Sim. I beshrow me, one woman to do all this. Is very painfull.
Qnic. Are you avised of that ? I, I warrant you, Take all, and paie all, all goe
through my hands, And he is such a honest man, and he should chance To come
home and finde a man here, we should Have no who {hoe, ed. 1619) with him.
He is a parlowes man.
Sim. Is he indeed ?
Q/dc. Is he quoth you ? God keepe him abroad : Lord blesse me, who knocks
there?
For Gods sake step into the Counting-house, While I goe see whose at doore.
[He stejjs into the Counting-Jionse.'\ What lohn Rugby, lohn, are you come
home sir alreadie? [And [omitted in ed. 1619) she opens the doore."\
Boot. I begar I be forget my oyntment, Where be lohn Rugby?
Enter Iohn. — Eng. Here sir, do you call ?
Doc. I you be lohn Rugbie, and you be lack Rugby Goe run up met your
heeles, and bring away De oyntment in de vindoe present : Make hast lohn
Rugbie. O 1 am almost forget My simples in a boxe in de Counting-house:
O leshu vat be here, a devella, a devella? My Rapier lohn Rugby, Vat be you,
vat make You in my Counting-house ? 1 tinck you be a teefe.
Qnic. leshu blesse me, we are all undone.
Si)n. O Lord sir no: 1 am no theefe, I am a Servingman : My name is John
Simple, 1 brought a Letter sir Erom my M. Slender, about misteris Anne Page
Sir : Indeed that is my comming.
Doc. 1 begar is dat all ? lohn Rugby give a ma pen An luck : tarche un pettit
tarche a little. [The Doctor icrites.]
Sim. O God what a furious man is this ?
Quic. Nay it is well he is no worse: I am glad he is so quiet.
Doc. Here give dat same to sir Hu, it ber ve chalenge Begar teU him I will cut
his nase, will you ?
Sim. I sir, lie tell him so.
Doc. Dat be veil, my Rapier lohn Rugby, follow may. [Uxit Doctor.
Qnic. Well my friend, I cannot tarry, tell your Maister lie doo what 1 can for
him, And so farewell.
Sim. Mary will 1, 1 am glad 1 am got hence. [Exit omnes.
Enter Mistresse Page, reading of a Letter. — Mis. Pa. Mistresse Page 1 love
you, Aske me no reason, Because theyr impossible to alledge. Your faire, And 1
am fat. Yon love sack, so do 1 : As 1 am sure I have no mind but to love. So 1
know you have no hart but to grant. A souldier doth not use many words, where
a knowes A letter may serve for a sentence. 1 love you. And so I leave you. —
Y'ours Syr John Falstaffe.
Now leshu blesse me, am 1 methomorphised ? I thinke 1 knowe not myselfe.
Why what a Gods name doth this man see in me, that thus he shootes at my
honestie? Well but that 1 knowe my owne heart, I should scarcely perswade my
selfe 1 Avere hand. Why what an unreasonable woolsack is this ? He was never
twice in my companie, and if then I thought 1 gave such assurance with my eies.
iNTROD.] THE MEEEY WIVES OF WINDSOE. 217
Ide pul them out, they should never see more holie daies. Well, I shall trust fat
men the worse while I live for his sake. 0 God that I knew how to be revenged
of him. But in good time, heeres mistresse Foord.
3nter Mistresse Egged. — Mis. For. How now Mistris Page, are you reading
Love Letters ? How do you woman ?
Mis. Pa. O woman I am I know not what : In love up to the hard eares. I
was never in such a case in my life.
Mis. Ford. In love, now in the name of God with whom ?
Mis. Pa. With one that sweares he loves me, And I must not choose but do the
like againe : I prethie looke on that Letter.
Mis. For. He match your letter just with the like. Line for line, word for word.
Only the name Of misteris Page, and misteris Eoord disagrees : Do me the
kindness to looke upon this.
Mis. Pa. Why this is right my letter. 0 most notorious viUaine ! Why what
a bladder of iniquitie is this ? Lets be revenged what so ere we do.
Mis. For. Eevenged, if we live weel be revenged. O Lord if my husband
should see this Letter, Ifaith this would even give edge to his Jealousie.
Enter Egrd, Page, Pistgll and Nym. — Mis. Pa. See where our husbands are.
Mine's as far from Jealousie, As I am from wronging him.
Pis. Eord the words I speake are forst : Beware, take heed, for Ealstaffe loves
thy wife : When Pistoll lies do this.
Ford. Why sir my wife is not young.
Pis. He wooes both yong and old, both rich and poore None comes amis. I
say he loves thy wife: Eaire warning did I give, take heed, Eor sommer
comes, and Cuckoo birds appeare : Page, believe him what he ses. Away sir
CorporaU Nym. {Exit Pistgll.
Ni/m. Syr the humor of it is, he loves your wife,
I should ha borne the humor Letter to her :
I speake and I avouch tis true : My name is Nym.
Earwell, I love not the humor of bread and cheese :
And theres the humor of it. [Exit Nym.
Pa. The humor of it, quoth you : Heres a fellow f rites humor out of his wits.
3£is. Pa. How now sweet hart, how dost thou ?
Enter Mistresse Quickly. — Pa. How now man? How do you mistris Eord ?
Mis. For. Well I thanke you good M. Page. How now husband, how chaunce
thou art so melancholy.
Ford. Melancholy, I am not melancholy. Goe get you in, goe.
3fis. For. God save me, see who yonder is : Weele set her a worke in this
businesse.
Mis. Pa. 0 sheele serve excellent. Now you come to see my daughter An I
am sure.
Quic. I forsooth that is my comming.
Mis. Pa. Come go in with me. Come Mis. Eord.
Mis. For. I follow you Mistresse Page.
[Exit Mistresse Eord, Mis. Page, and Quickly.
For. M. Page did you heare what these fellowes said ?
Pa. Yes M. Eord, what of that sir?
For. Do you thinke it is true that they told us?
Pa. No by my troth do I not, I rather take them to be paltry lying knaves.
Such as rather speakes of envie, Then of any certaine they have Of any thing. And
for the knight, perhaps He liath spoke merrily, as the fashion of fat men Are :
But should he love my wife, Ifaith Ide turne her loose to him: And what he got
II. 28
21S
THE MERHY WIVES OF WINDSOR.
[iNTROD.
more of her, Then ill lookes, and shrowd words, AVliy let me bcare the penaltie
of it.
For. Nay I do not mistrust my wife, Yet Ide be loth to turne them together, A
man may be too confident.
Enter Host and Shallow. — Fa. Here comes my ramping liost of the garter,
Ther's either licker in his hed, or mony in his purse, Tliat he lookes so merily.
Now mine Host ?
Host. God blcsse you my bully rookes, God blesse you. Cavelera Justice
I say.
Shal. At hand mine host, at hand. M. Ford god den to you. God den an
twentie good M. Page. I tell you sir we have sport in hand.
Host. Tell him cavelira Justice : tell him bully rooke.
Ford. Mine Host a the garter :
Host. AVhat ses my bully rooke?
Ford. A word with you sir. [Ford and the Host talhes.
Shal. Harke you sir. He tell you what the sport shall be. Doctor Cayus and sir
Hu are to tiglit. My merrie Host hath had the measuring Of their weapons, and
hath Appointed them contrary places. Harke in your eare :
Host. Hast thou no shute against my knight, My guest, my cavellira.
For. None I protest: But tell him my name Is Erooke [Brooke, ed. 1619),
onlie for a Jest.
Host. My [thy, ed. 1619) hand bully: Thou shalt Have egres and regres, and
thy Name shall be Brooke : Sed I well bully Hector ?
Shal. I teU you what M. Page, I beleeve The Doctor is no Jester, heele laie it
on : For tho we be Justices and Doctors, And Church men, yet we are The sonnes
of women M. Pa<?e:
Pa. True maister Shallow:
Shal. It will be found so maister Page:
Pa. Maister Shallow you your selfe Have bene a great fighter, Tho now a man
of peace:
Shal. M. Page I have scene the day that yong TaU fellowes with their stroke and
their passado, I have made them trudge Maister Page, A tis the hart, the hart
doth all : I Have scene the day, with my two hand sword I would a made you foure
tall Fencers Scipped like Eattes.
Host. Here boyes, shall we wag, shall we wag ?
Shal. Pla with you mine host. [^Exit Host and Shallow.
Pa. Come M. Ford, shall we to dinner ? I know these fellowes sticks in your
minde.
For. No in good sadnesse not in mine : Yet for all this He try it further, I will
not leave it so : Come M. Page, shall we to dinner ?
Pa. With all my hart sir, lie follow you. \_Fxit omnes.
Enter Syr John, and Pistoll. — Fal. He not lend thee a peny.
Pis. I will retort the sum in equipage.
Fal. Not a pennie : I have beene content you slmld lay my countenance to
pawne : 1 have grated upon my good friends for 3. reprives, for you and your
Coach-fellow Nym, else you might a looked thorow a grate like a geminy of
babones. I am damned in hell for swearing to Gentlemen your good souldiers
and taU fellowes : And when mistresse Briget lost the handle of her Fan, I tooked
on my ho- [honesty, ed. 1619) thou hadst it not.
Pis. Didst thou not share ? hadst thou not fifteene pence ?
Fal. Eeason you rogue, reason. Doest thou thinke He indanger my soule
gratis ? In briefe, hang no more about mee, I am no gybit for you. A short
iNTROD.] THE MEEEY WIVES OF WINDSOR 219
knife and a throng to your manner of pickt hatch, goe. Youle not heare a Letter
for me you rogue you: you stand upon your honor. Why thou uncontinable
hasenesse thou, tis as much as I can do to keep the termes of my honor precise.
I, I my selfe sometimes, leaving the feare of God on the left hand, am faine to shuffel,
to filch and to lurch. And yet you stand upon your honor, you rogue. You, you.
Pis. I do recant: what woulst thou more of man ?
Fal. Well, go too, away, no more.
Enter Mistresse Quickly. — Quic. Good you god den sir.
Fal. Good den faire wife.
Quic. Not so ant like your worship.
Fal. Eaire mayd then.
Quic. That I am He be sworne, as my mother was The first lioure I was borne.
Sir I would speake with you in private.
Fal. Say on I pretliy, heeres none but my owne houshold.
Quic. Are they so ? Now God blesse them, and make them his servants. S}t I
come from Mistresse Eoord.
Fal. So from Mistresse Eoord. Goe on.
Quic. I sir, she hath sent me to you to let you Understand she hath received
yom- Letter, And let me tell you, she is one stands upon her credit.
Fal. Well, come Misteris Eord, Misteris Eord.
Quic. I sir, and as they say, she is not the first Hath bene led in a fooles paradice.
Fal. Nay prethy be briefe my good she Mercury.
Quic. Mary sir, sliced have you meet her between eight and nine.
Fal. So betweene eight and nine:
Quic. I forsooth, for then her husband goes a birding.
Fal. Well commend me to thy mistris, tel her I will not faile her: Boy give
her my purse.
Quic. Nay sir I have another arant to do to you Erom Misteris Page:
Fal. Erom misteris Page ? I prethy what of her ?
Quic. By my troth I think you work by inchantments, Els they could never love
you as they doo :
Fal. Not I, I assure thee: setting the attraction of my Good parts aside, I use
no other inchantments.
Quic. AYell sir, she loves you extreemly: And let me tell you, shees one that
feares God, And her husband gives her leave to do all : Eor he is not halfe so
jealousie as M. Eord is.
Fal. But harke thee, hath misteris Page and mistris Eord, Acquainted each
other how dearly they love me ?
Quic. 0 God no sir: there were a jest indeed.
Fal. Well farwel, commend me to misteris Eord, I will not faile her say.
Quic. God be with your worship. IFxit Mistresse Quickly.
Enter Bardolee. — Bar. Sir beer's a gentleman. One M. Brooke, would speak
with you, He hath sent you a cup of sacke.
Fal. M. Brooke, hees welcome ; Bid him come up. Such Brookes are alwaies
welcome to me : A Jack, will thy old bodie yet hold out ? AVilt thou after the
expence of so much mony Be now a gainer ? Good bodie I thanke thee, And He
make more of thee then I ha done : Ha, ha, misteris Eord, and misteris Page,
have I caught you a the hip? go too.
Enter Eoord disguised lihe Brooke. — For. God save you sir.
Fal. And you too, would you speak with me ?
Fal. Mary would I sir, I am somewhat bolde to trouble you, My name is
Brooke.
220 THE MEllUY WIVES OE WINDSOR. [introd.
Fal. Good M. Brooke your vcric welcome.
For. llaitli sir I aiu a i^-cntlcman and a traveller, That have seen somewhat.
And I have often heard That if mony «>-oes before, all waies lie open.
Fal. Mony is a good souldier sir, and will on.
For. Ifaith sir, and I have a bag- here, AVould you wood lielpe me to beare it.
Fal. O Lord, would 1 could tell how to deserve To be your porter.
For. That may you easily sir John ; I have an earnest Sute to you. But good
sir John when I have Told you my griefe, cast one eie of your owne Estate, since
your selfe knew Avhat tis to be Such an offender.
Fal. Verie well sir, proceed.
For. Sir I am deeply in love with one Eords wife Of this Towne. Now sir
John you are a gentleman Of good discoursing, well beloved among Ladies, A
man of such parts that might win 20. such as she.
Fal. 0 good sir.
For. Nay beleeve it sir John, for tis time [sic). Now my love Is so grounded
upon her, tliat without her love I shall hardly live.
Fal. Have you importuned her by any means ?
Ford. No never sir.
Fal. Of what qualitie is your love then ?
Ford. Ifaith sir, like a faire house set upon Another mans foundation.
Fal. And to what end have you unfolded this to me ?
For. O, sir, when I have told you that, I told you all : Eor she sir stands so pure
in the firme state Of her honestie, that she is too bright to be looked Against :
Now could I come against her With some detection, I should sooner perswade her
Erom her marriage vow, and a hundred such nice Tearmes that sheele stand upon.
Fal. Why would it apply well to the vervensie of your affection, That another
should possesse what you would enjoy ? Meethinks you prescribe verie proposte-
rcusly To your selfe.
For. No sir, for by that meanes should I be certaine of that which I now
misdoubt.
Fal. Well M. Brooke, He first make bold with your mony, Next, give me your
hand. Lastly, you shall And (//', ed. 1G19) you will, enjoy Eords wife.
For. O good sir.
Fal. M. Brooke, I say you shall.
Ford. Want no mony Syr John, you shall want none.
Fal. Want no Misteris Eord M. Brooke, You shall want none. Even as you
came to me, Her spokes mate, her go between parted from me : I may tell you M.
Brooke, I am to meet her Between 8. and 9. for at that time the Jealous Cuckally
knave her husband wil be from home, Come to me soone at niglit, you shaU know
how I speed M. Brooke.
Ford. Sir do you know Eord ?
Fal. Hang him poore cuckally knave, I know him not. And yet I wi'ong him to
call him poore. Eor they Say the cuckally knave hath legions of angels, Eor the
which his wife seemes to me well favored. And He use her as the key of the cuck-
ally knaves Coffer, and there's my randevowes.
Ford. Meethinkes sir it were very [tJiis icord omitted in ed. 1G19) good that you
knew Eord, that you might shun liim.
Fal. Hang him cuckally knave, He stare him Out of his wits, He keepe him in
awe With this my cudgell : It shall hang like a meator Ore the wittolly knaves head,
M. Brooke thou shalt See I will predominate ore the peasant, And thou shalt
lie with his wife. M. Brooke Thou shalt know him for knave and cuckold. Come
to me soone at night. \_Fxit Ealstafee.
INTROD.]
THE MEUEY WIVES OE WINDSOR.
Ford. What a damned epicurian is this ? My wife hath sent for him, the plot
is laid : Page is an Asse, a foole, A secure Asse, He sooner trust an Irishman
witli my Aquavita bottle, Sir Hu our parson with my cheese, A theefe to walk my
ambling gelding, then my wife With her selfe : then she plots, then she ruminates,
And what she tliinkes in her hart she may effect, Sheele breake her hart but she
will eflPect it. God be praised, God be praised for my jealousie : Well He goe
prevent him, the time drawes on. Better an houre too soone, then a minit too late,
Gods my life cuckold, cuckold. \Exit Eoiid.
Enter the Doctoe and Ms man. — Doc. J ohn Rugbie goe looke met your eies
ore de stall. And spie and you can see de parson.
Bug. Sir I cannot tell whether he be there or no, But I see a great many
comming.
Doc. Bully moy, mon rapier John Bugabie, begar de Hearing {Jierring, ed. 1619)
be not so dead as I shall make him.
Enter Shallow, Page, my Host, and Slender. — Pa. God save you M.
Doctor Cayus.
Shal. How do you M. Doctor?
Host. God blesse thee my bully doctor, God blesse thee.
Doc. Vat be all you, to tree com for, a ?
Host. Bully to see thee fight, to see thee foine, to see thee traverse, to see thee
here, to see thee there, to see thee passe the punto. The stock, the reverse, the
distance : the montnce [sic) is a dead my francoyes ? Is a dead my Ethiopian ?
Ha what ses my gallon ? my escuolapis ? Is a dead bullies taile, is a dead ?
Doc. Begar de preest be a coward Jack knave, Pie dare not shew his face.
Host. Thou art a castallian king urinaU. Hector of Greece my boy.
Shal. He hath showne himselfe the wiser man M. Doctor : Sir Hugh is a
Parson, and you a Phisition. You must Goe with me M. Doctor.
Host. Pardon bully Justice. A w'ord monsire mockwater.
Doc. Mockwater, vat me [he, ed. 1619) dat?
Host. That is in our English tongue, Vallor bully, vaUor.
Doc. Begar den I have as mockvater as de Inglish Jack dog, knave.
Host. He will claperclaw thee titely bully.
Doc. Claperclawe, vat be dat ?
Host. That is, he will make thee amends.
Doc. Begar I do looke he shal claperclaw me den. And He provoke him to do
it, or let him wag : And moreover bully, but M. Page and M. Shallow, And eke
cavellira Slender, go you all over the fields to Erogmore ?
Pa. Sir Hugh is there, is hee ?
Host. He is there : goe see what humor hee is in, He bring the doctor about by
the fields: Will it do well ?
Shal. AVe wil do it my host. Earwel M. Doctor. \_Exit all hut the Host
and Doctor.
Doc. Begar I will kill de cowardly Jack preest. He is make a foole of moy.
Host. Let him die, but first sheth your impatience. Throw cold water on your
collor, com go with me Through the fields to Erogmore, and He bring thee Where
mistris An Page is a feasting [is feasting, ed. 1619) at a farm house. And thou
shalt wear hir cried game : sed I wel bully.
Doc. Begar excellent vel : and if you speak pour moy, I shall procure you de
gesse of all de gentlemen mon patinces. I begar I sail.
Host. Eor the which He be thy adversary To misteris An Page : Sed I well ?
Doc. I begar excellent.
Host. Let us waof then.
O
THE MEIUIY AVIVES OE WINDSOil.
[iNTROD.
Doc. Alon, alon, alon. [^Exit omnes.
Enter Syu Hugh and Simple. — Sir IIu. I pray you do so much as see
if you can espie Doctor Cayus connniug-, and give me intelligence, Or bring- me
lu'de if you })lease now. •
S'm. I will sir.
Sir IIii. Jeslm pies mee, how my hart trobes, and trobes,
And then she made him bedes of lloses,
And a thousand fragrant poses,
To shallow rivercs. Now so kad udge me, my hart Swelles more and more. Mee
thinkes I can cry Verie well. There dwelt a man in Babylon,
To shallow rivers and to falles,
Melodious birds sing MadrigaUes.
Sim. Sir here is M. Page and M. Shallow, Comming hither as fast as they can.
Sir Hit. Then it is verie necessary I put uj) my sword. Pray give me my cowne
too, marke you.
Enter Page, Shalloav, and Slender. — Pa. God save you Sir Hugh.
Shtd. God save you M. parson.
Sir IIh. God plesse you all from liis mercies sake now.
Fa. AVhat the wwd and the sword, doth that agree well ?
Sir Hu. There is reasons and causes in all things, I warrant you now.
Pa. Well Sir Hugh, Ave are come to crave Your helpe and furtherance in a
matter.
Sir Hn. What is {is it, ed. 1619) I pray you?
Pa. Ifaith tis this sir Hugh. There is an auncient friend of ours, a man of
verie good sort, so at oddes with one patience, that I am sure you Avould bartily
grieve to see him. Now Sir Hugh, you are a scholler Avell red, and verie per-
swasive, we would intreate you to see if you could intreat him to patience.
Sir IIh. I pray you who is it ? Let us know that.
Pa. I am shure you know him, tis Doctor Cayus.
Sir Hu. I had as leeve you should tel me of a messe of poredge, He is an arant
lowsie beggerly knave : And he is a coward beside.
Pa. AYhy He laie my life tis the man That he should fight withall.
Enter Doctor and the Host, they offer to fight. — Shal. Keep them asunder,
take away their weapons.
Host. Disarme, let them question.
Shal. Let them keep their limbs hole, and hack our English.
Doc. Hark van urd in your eare. Y^ou be un daga And de Jack, coward
preest.
Sir Hu. Harke you, let us not be laughing stockes to other mens humors. By
Jesliu I wiU knock your urinaUs about your knaves cockcomes, for missing your
meetings and appointments.
Doc. 0 Jeshu mine host of de garter, John Rogoby, Have I not met him at de
place he make apoint, Have I not ?
Sir Hu. So kad udge me, this is the pointment place, Witnes by my Host of
the garter.
Host. Peace I say gawle and gawlia, Erench and Wealch, Soule curer, and
bodie curer.
Doc. This is verie brave, excellent.
Host. Peace I say, heare mine host of the garter. Am I wise ? am I poUiticke ?
am I Matchavil? Shall I lose my doctor? No, he gives me the motions And the
])otions. Shall I lose my parson, my sir Hu ? No, he gives me the proverbes, and
the noverbes : Give me thy hand terestriall, So give me thy hand celestiall : So
iNTROD.] THE MEHHY wives OE WINDSOE. 223
boyes of art I have deceived you both, I have directed you to wrong places, Your
hearts are mightie, your skins are whole, Bardolfe laie their swords to pawne.
Follow me lads Of peace, follow me. Ha, ra, la. EoUow. [_Exit Host.
Shal. Afore God a mad host, come let us goe.
Doc. I begar have you mocka may thus ? I will be even met you my Jack
Host.
Sir Hu. Give me your hand Doctor Cayus, We be all friends : But for mine
hosts foolish knavery, let me alone.
Doc. I dat be veil, begar I be friends. \_Exit omnes.
Enter M. Eoord. — For. The time drawes on he shuld come to my house,
Well wife, you had best worke closely, Or I am like to goe beyond your cunning :
I now wil seek my guesse that comes to dinner, And in good time see where they
all are come. [Enter Shallow, Page, host. Slender, Doctor, and sir Hugh.]
By my faith a knot well met : your welcome all.
Pa. I thanke you good M. Eord.
For. Welcome good M. Page, I would your daughter were here.
Pa. I thank you sir, she is very well at home.
Sten. Eather Page I hope I have your consent Eor Misteris Anne ?
Pa. You have sonne Slender, but my wife here, Is altogether for maister
Doctor.
Doc. Begar I tanck her hartily :
Host. But what say you to yong Maister Eenton ? He capers, he daunces, he
writes verses, he smelles All April and May : he wil cary it, he wil carit, Tis in
his betmes {sic) he wil carite.
Pa. My host not with my consent : the gentleman is Wilde, he knowes too
much : If he take her, Let him take her simply : for my goods goes With my
liking, and my liking goes not that way.
For. W eU I pray go home with me to dinner : Besides your cheare He shew
you wonders : He Shew you a monster. You shall go with me M. Page, and so
shall you sir Hugh, and you Maister Doctor.
S. Hit. If there be one in the company, I shal make two :
Doc. And dere be ven to, I sail make de tird :
Sir Hu. In your teeth for shame,
Shat. wel, wel, God be with you, we shall have the fairer Wooing at Maister
Pages : \Exit Shallow and Slender.
Host. He to my honest knight sir John EalstafPe, And drinke Canary with him.
[Exit host.
Ford. I may chance to make him drinke in pipe wine, Eirst come gentlemen.
\Exit omnes.
Enter Mistresse Eord, loitli two of her me?t, and a great hich hasJcet.
Mis. For. Sirrha, if your M. aske you whither You carry this basket, say to the
Launderers, I hope you know how to bestow it ?
Ser. I warrant you misteris. [Exit servant.
Mis. For. Go get you in. AYell sir John, I beleeve I thaU serve you such a
trick, You shall have little mind to come againe.
Enter Ser John. — Fal. Have I caught my heavenlie Jewel? Why now let
me die. I have lived long inough, This is the happie houre I have desired to see,
Now shall I sin in my wish, I Avould thy husband were dead.
Mis. For. Why how then sir John ?
Fal. By the Lord, Ide make thee my Ladie.
Mis. For. Alas, sir John, I should be a verie simple Ladie.
Fal. Goe too, I see how thy eie doth emulate the Diamond. And how the
THE MEERY WIVES OE WINDSOR. [introd.
arched bent of tliy brow Would become the ship tire, the tire vellet, Or anie
Venetian attire, I see it.
Mis. For. A ph^ine kercher sir John, woukl fit me better.
Fal, By the Lord thou art a traitor to saie so : AVhat made me love thee ?
Let that perswade thee Ther's somewhat extraordinarie in thee : Goe too I love
thee : ]\listris Eord, I cannot cog, I cannot ])rate, like one Of these fellows that
smels like Bucklers-berie, In simple time, but I love thee, And none but thee.
Mis. For. Sir John, I am afraid you love misteris Page.
Fal. I thou mig'htest as well saie I love to walke by the Counter gate, Which
is as hatefull to me As the reake of a lime kill.
Filter MiSTEESSE Page. — 3Iis. Pa. Mistresse Eord, Mis. Eord, where are you?
Mis. For. O Lord step aside good sir John. [Ealstaffe stands hehiud the
aras.^ How now Misteris Page whats the matter ?
3Iis. Pa. Why your husband woman is comming. With halfe Windsor at his
heeles, To looke for a gentleman that he ses Is hid in his [this, ed. 1619) house :
his wifes sweet hart.
Mis. For. Speak louder. But I hope tis not true Misteris Page.
Mis. Pa. Tis too true woman. Therefore if you Have any here, away with him,
or your undone for ever.
3Iis. For. Alas mistresse Page, what shall I do ? Here is a gentleman my friend,
how shall I do?
Mis. Pa. Gode body woman, do not stand what shal I do, and what shall I do.
Better any shift, rather then you shamed. Looke heere, here's a buck-basket, if
bee be a man of any reasonable sise, heele in here.
Mis. For. Alas I feare he is too big.
Fal. Let me see, let me see. He in, He in, Eollow your friends counsell.
[Aside {this direction omitted in ed. 1G19).
Mis. Pa. Eie sir John is this your love ? Go too.
Fal. I love thee, and none but thee : Helpe me to convey me hence. He never
come here more. [Sir John goes into the basket, they put cloathes over him, the
tico men carries it aioay. Egged meetes it, and all the rest. Page, Doctgr, Pr'Est,
Slender, Shallow.]
Ford. Come pray along, you shall see aU. How now who goes heare ? whither
goes this ? Whither goes it ? set it downe.
Mis. For. Now let it go, you had best meddle with buck-washing.
Ford. Buck, good buck, pray come along, Maister Page take my keyes: helpe
to search. Good Sir Hugh pray come along, helpe a little, a little. He shew
you aU.
Sir IIu. By Jeshu these are jealosies and distemperes. \_Fxit omnes.
Mis. Pa. He is in a pittifull taking.
Mis. I wonder what he thought When my husband bad them set downe the
basket.
Mis. Pa. Hang him dishonest slave, we cannot use Him bad inough. This is
excellent for your Husbands jealousie.
Mi. For. Alas poore soule it grieves me at the hart. But this will be a meanes
to make him cease His jealous fits, if EalstaflPes love increase.
Mis. Pa. Nay we wil send to Ealstaffe once again, Tis great pittie we should
leave him : What wives may be merry, and yet honest too.
Mi. For. Shall we be condemnd because we laugh?
Tis old, but true : still sowes eate all the drafiPe.
Filter all. — Mis. Pa. Here comes your husband, stand aside.
For. I can find no body within, it may be he lied.
INTROD,]
THE MEEEY WIVES OF AVINDSOR.
225
Mis. Pa. Did you heare that ?
Mis. For. I, I, peace.
For. "VYell lie not let it go so, yet He trie further.
S. Hii. By Jeshu if there be any body in the kitchin Or the cuberts, or the
presse, or the buttery, I am an arrant Jew: Now God plesse me: You serve me
well, do you not ?
Pa. Eie M. Eord you are to blame.
Mis. Pa. Ifaith tis not well M. Eord to suspect Her thus without cause
{a cause, ed. 1619).
Boc. No by my trot it be no veU :
For. Wei I pray bear with me, M. Page pardon me. I suffer for it, I suffer
for it :
Sir Hu : You suffer for a bad conscience looke you now:
Ford : WeU 1 pray no more, another time He tell you all : The mean time go
dine with me, pardon me wife, I am sorie. M. Page pray goe in to dinner,
Another time lie teU you all.
Pa : Wei let it be so, and to morrow 1 invite you aU To my house to dinner :
and in the morning weele A birding, I have an excellent Hauke for the bush.
Ford: Let it be so: Come M. Page, come wife: I pray you come in all, your
welcome, pray come in.
Sir Hu: By so kad udgme, M. Eordes is Not in his right wittes: \Fxit omnes:
Enter Sir John Eai^staffe [and Bardolfe, ed. 1619). — Fal: Bardolfe brew me
a pottle sack presently:
Bar: With Egges sir ?
Fal: Simply of it selfe. He none of these pullets sperme In my drinke : goe
make haste. Have I lived to be carried in a basket and throwne into the Thames
like a barow of Butchers offoll. Well, and I be served such another tricke. He
give them leave to take out my braines and butter them, and give them to a dog
for a new-yeares gift. Sblood, the rogues slided me in with as little remorse as if
they had gone to drowne a blind bitches puppies in the litter : and they might
kuow by my sise I have a kind of alacritie in sinking : and the bottom had bin
as deep as hell 1 should dovme. I had bene drowned, but that the shore was
shelvie and somewhat shallowe: a death that I abhorre. Eor you know the water
sweUes a man : and what a thing should I have bene when I had bene swelled ?
By the Lord a mountaine of money [sic). Now is the Sacke brewed?
Bar. I sir, there's a woman below would speake with you.
Fal. Bid her come up. Let me put some Sacke among this cold water, for ray
belly is as cold as if I had swaUowed snow-baUes for pilles. {Enter Mistresse
Quickly.] Now whats the newes with you ?
Quic. 1 come from misteris Eord forsooth.
Fal. Misteris Eord, I have had Eord inough, 1 have bene throwne into the Eord,
my beUy is full Of Eord : she hath tickled mee.
Quic. 0 Lord sir, she is the sorrowfuUest woman that her servants mistooke,
that ever lived. And sir, she would desire you of all loves you will meet her once
againe, to morrow sir, betweene ten and eleven, and she hopes to make amends for all.
Fal. Ten, and eleven, saiest thou ?
Quic. I forsooth.
Fal. WeU, tell her He meet her. Let her but tliink Of mans frailtie : Let her
judge what man is. And then thinke of me. And so farwell.
QiCic. Youle not faile sir ? [Exit mistresse Quickly.
Fal. I will not faile. Commend me to her. I wonder 1 heare not of M. Brooke,
I like his Mony well. By the masse here he is.
Enter Brooke. — For. God save you sir.
II. 29
226
THE MEllllY WIVES OE AVINDSOll.
[iNTROD.
Fal. "Welcome good M. Brooke. Yoii come to know liow matters goes.
Iwrd. Tliats my comming indeed sir Jolm.
Fal. ]5rooke 1 will not lie to you sir, I was there at my appointed time.
For. And how sped you sir ?
Fal. Yerie illavouredly sir.
For. AYhy sir, did she change her determination ?
Fal. No M. Erooke, but you shall heare. After we had kissed and imbraced,
and as it were even amid the prologue of our incounter, who should come, but the
jealous knave her husband, and a rabble of his ccmipanions at his heeles, thither
provoked and instigated by his distemper. And what to do thinke you ? to search
for his wives love. Even so, plainly so.
For. AYhile ye were there.
Fal. "Whilst I was there.
For. And did he search and could not find you?
Fal. Y^ou shall heare sir, as God would have it, A litle before comes me [sic) one
Pages wife. Gives her inteUigence of her husbands Approach : and by her invention,
and Eords wives Distraction, conveyed me into a buck basket.
Ford. A buck basket !
Fal. By the Lord a buck basket, rammed me in AVith foule shirts, stokins,
greasie napkins, That M. Brooke, there was a compound of the most Yillanous
sniel, that ever oflPended nostrill. He tell you M. Brooke, by the Lord for your
sake I suffered three egregious deaths : First to be Crammed like a good bilbo, in
the circumference Of a pack. Hilt to point, heele to head : and then to Be stewed
in niy owne grease like a Dutch dish : A man of my kidney; by the Lord it was
marvell [ Escaped suffication ; and in the heat of all this. To be throwne into
Thames like a horsehoo hot : Maister Brooke, thinke of that hissing heate, Maister
Brooke.
Ford. AYell sir then my shute is void ? Youle undertake it no more ?
Fal. M. Brooke, He be throwne into Etna As I have bene in the Thames, Ere
I thus [thus I, ed. 1619) leave her ; I have received Another appointment of
meeting, Between ten and eleven is the houre.
Ford: Why sir, tis almost ten alreadie :
Fal. Is it ? why then will I addresse my selfe Eor my appointment : M. Brooke
come to me soone At night, and you shall know how 1 speed. And the end shall
be, you shall enjoy her love : Y^ou shall cuckold Eoord : come to mee soone at
(at omitted in ed. 1619) night. [^Exit Ealstaffe.
For. Is this a dreame ? Is it a vision ? Maister Eord, maister Eord, awake
maister Eord, There is a hole made in your best coat M. Eord, And a man shall
not only endure this wrong. But shall stand under the taunt of names, Lucifer is a
good name, Barbason good : good Divels names : But cuckold, wittold, godeso
The divel himselfe hath not such a name : And they may hang hats here, and
napkins here Upon my homes : Well He home, I ferit him. And unlesse the
divel himselfe should aide him, He search unpossible places : He about it. Least
I repent too late : [_Fxit omnes.
Filter M. Eenton, Page, and mistresse Quickly.— Fen : Tell me sweet Nan,
how doest thou yet resolve,
ShaU foolish Slender have thee to his wife ?
Or one as wise as he, the learned Doctor ?
ShaU such as they enjoy thy maiden hart ?
Thou knowst that I have alwaies loved thee deare,
And thou hast oft times swore the like to me.
An : Good M. Eenton, you may assure your selfe
My hart is setled upon none but you.
IXTROD.]
TEE MEEP.Y WIVES OE WINDSOE.
227
Tis as my father and mother please :
Get their consent, you quickly shall have mine.
Fen : Thy father thinks I love thee for his wealth,
Tho I must needs confesse at first that drew me,
But since thy vertues wiped that trash away,
I love thee Nan, and so deare is it set,
That whilst I live, I nere shall thee forget.
Quic. Godes pitie here comes her father.
Miter M. Page, Ms wife, M. Shallow, and Slender. — Pa. M. Eenton I pray
what make you here ? You know my answere sir, shees not for you : Knowing my
vow, to blame to use me thus.
Fen. But heare me speake sir.
Pa. Pray sir get you gon : Come hither daughter, Sonne Slender let me speak
with you. [they lolmper.
Quia. Speake to Misteris Page.
Fen. Pray Misteris Page let me have your consent.
Mis. Pa. Ifaith M. Eenton tis as my husband please. Eor my part He neither
hinder you, nor further you.
Quic. How say you this was my doings ? I bid you speake to misteris Page.
Fen. Here nurse, theres a brace of angels to drink, Worke what thou canst for
me, farwell. [_Fxit Een.
Quic. By my troth so I will, good hart.
Pa. Come wife, you an I will in, weele leave M. Slender And my daughter to
talke together. M. Shallow, You may stay sir if you please.
[Exit Page and his wife.
Shal. Mary I thanke you for that : To her cousin, to her.
Slen. Ifaith I know not what to say.
An. Now M. Slender, whats your will ?
Slen. Godeso theres a Jest indeed : why misteris An, I never made wil yet : I
thank God I am wise inough for that.
Shal. Eie cusse fie, thou art not right, 0 thou hadst a father.
Slen. I had a father misteris Anne, good uncle Tell the Jest how my father
stole the goose out of The henloft. All this is nought, harke you mistresse Anne.
Shal. He will make you joynter of three hundred pound a yeare, he shall make
you a gentlewoman.
Slend. I be God that I viU, come cut and long taile, as good as any is in
Glostershire, under the degree of a Squire.
An. 0 God how many grosse faults are hid. And covered in three hundred
pound a yeare ? Well M. Slender, within a day or two He tell you more.
Slend. I thanke you good misteris Anne, uncle I shall have her.
Quic. M. Shallow, M. Page would pray you to come you, and you M. Slender,
and you mistris An.
Slend. Well Nurse, if youle speake for me, He give you more than He talke of.
[Exit omnes hut Quickly.
Quic. Indeed I will. He speake what I can for you. But specially for M. Eenton :
But specially of aU for my Maister. And indeed I wiU do what I can for them
all three. [Exit.
Enter misteris Eord and her two men. — 3Es. For. Do you heare ? when your
M. comes take up this basket as you did before, and if your M. bid you set it
downe, obey him.
Ser. I will forsooth.
Enter Syr John. — Mis. For. S}t John welcome.
228
THE MEllllY WIVES OE WINDSOE.
[iXTROD.
FuL "\Miat arc yoii sure of your liusband now ?
Mis. For. lie is i>-oiie a birding- sir John, and I hope will not come home yet.
[Fitter MiSTRESSE Page.] — Gods body lierc is niisteris Page, Step behind the arras
good sir John. [He steps helihul the arras.
J-l/'s. J\i. ]\Iisteris Ford, why woman, your husband is in his old vaine againe,
hees connning to search for your sweet heart, but I am glad he is not here.
Mis. For. O God misteris Page the knight is here, what shall I do ?
Mis. Pa. Why then you'r undone woman, unles you make some meanes to
shift him away,
3Iis. For. Alas I know no meanes, unlesse we put him in the basket againe.
Fal. No He come no more in the basket, He creep up into the chimney.
Mis. For. There they use to discharge their Eowling peeces.
Fal. AVhy then He goe out of doores.
3Iis. Pa. Then your undone, your but a dead man.
Fal. For Gods sake devise any extremitie, Hather then a mischiefe.
3Iis. Pa. Alas I know not what meanes to make, If there were any woman s
apparell Avould fit him. He might put on a gowne and a mufler. And so escape.
Mi. For. Thats wel remembred, my maids Aunt Gillian of Brainford, hath a
gowne above.
Mis. Pa. And she is altogether as fat as he.
Mis. For. I that W'ill serve him of my word.
Mis. Pa. Come goe with me sir John, He helpe to dresse you.
Fal. Come for God sake, any thing. [Exit Mis. Page, and Sir John.
Enter M. Eord, Page, Priest, Shaxlow, the two men carries the haslcet, and
EoRD meets it. — For. Come along I pray, you slial know the cause. How now
whither goe you ? Ha whither go you ? Set downe the basket you slave, You
panderly rogue set it downe.
Mis. For. What is the reason that you use me thus ?
For. Come hither set downe the basket, Misteris Eord the modest woman,
Misteris Eord the vertuous woman. She that hath the jealous foole to her husband,
I mistrust you without cause do I not ?
Mis. For. I Gods my record do you. And if you mistrust me in any ill sort.
Ford. Well sed brazen face, hold it out. You youth in a basket, come out here,
Pull out the cloatlies, search.
IIu. Jeshu plesse me, wiU you pull up your wives cloathes ?
Pa. Eie M. Eord you are not to go abroad if you be in these fits.
Sir Hu. By so kad udge me, tis verie necessarie He were put in pethlem.
For. M. Page, as I am an honest man M. Page, There was one conveyd out
of my house here yesterday out of this basket, why may he not be here now ?
Mi. For. Come mistris Page, bring the old woman downe.
For. Old woman, what old woman ?
Mi. For. Why my maidens Ant, Gillian of Brainford. {For. ed. 1619).
A witch, have I not forewarned her my house, Alas we are simple we, we know
not what Is brought to passe under the colour of fortune- Telling. Come downe
you witch, come downe.
Enter Ealstaeee disguised like an old woman, and misteris Page with him,
Eord heates him, and hee runnes aicay. — Away you witch get you gone.
Sir Hu. By Jeshu I verily thinke she is a witch indeed, I espied under her
mufler a great beard.
Ford. Pray come helpe me to search, pray now.
Pa. Come weele go for his minds sake. [Exit omnes.
Mi. For. By my troth he beat limi most extreamly.
INTROD.]
THE MERllY AVIYES OF WINDSOll.
229
3Ii. Pa. I am glad of it, what shall we proceed any further ?
Mi. For. No faith, now if you will let us tell our husbands of it. For mine I
am sure hath almost fretted himselfe to death.
Pa. Content, come weele goe tell them all, And as they agree, so will we
proceed. [^Exit both.
Enter Host and Bardolte. — Bar. Syr heere be three Gentlemen come from
the Duke the Stranger sir, would have your horse.
Host. The Duke, what Duke ? let me speake with the Gentlemen, do they
speak e English ?
Bar. He call them to you sir.
Host. No Bardolfe, let them alone, He sauce them : They have had my house a
weeke at command, I have turned away my other guesse, They shall have my
horses Bardolfe, They must come ofP, He sawce them. \_Exit omues.
Enter Eord, Page, their wives. Shallow, and Slender. Syr Hu. — Ford. AY ell
wife, heere take my hand, upon my soule I love thee dearer then I do my life, and
joy I hnve [have, ed. 1619) so true and constant wife, my jealousie shall never more
offend thee.
Hi. For. Sir I am glad, and that which I have done. Was nothing else but
mirth and modestie.
Pa. I misteris Eord, Ealstaffe hath all the griefe.
And in this knaverie my wife was the chiefe.
Mi. Pa. No knavery husband, it was honest mirth.
Hu. Indeed it was good pastimes and merriments.
Mis. For. But sweete heart shall wee leave olde Falstaffe so ?
Mis. Pa. O by no meanes, send to him againe.
Pa. 1 do not thinke lieele come being so much deceived.
For. Let me alone. He to him once againe like Brooke, and know his mind
whether heele come or not.
Pa. There must be some plot laide, or heele not come.
Mis. Pa. Let us alone for that. Heare my device.
Oft have you heard since Home the hunter dyed,
That women to affright their litle children,
Ses that he walkes in shape of a great stagge.
Now for that Falstaffe hath bene so deceived.
As that he dares not venture to the house,
Weele send him word to meet us in the field.
Disguised like Home, with huge horns on his head,
The houre shalbe just between e twelve and one,
And at that time we will meet him both :
Then would I have you present there at hand.
With litle boyes disguised and dressed like Fayries,
For to affright fat Falstaffe in the woods.
And then to make a period to the Jest,
Tell Falstaffe all, 1 thinke this will do best.
Pa. Tis excellent, and my daughter Anne, Shall like a litle Fayrie be disguised.
Mis. Pa. And in that Maske He make the Doctor steale my daughter An, and
ere my husband knowes it, to carrie her to Church, and marrie her.
Mis For. But who will buy the silkes to tyre the boyes ^
Pa. That will 1 do, and in a robe of white He cloath my daughter, and adver-
tise Slender To know her by that signe, and steale her thence. And unknowne to
my wife, shall marrie her.
Hu. So kad udge me the devises is excellent. I will also be there, and be
like a Jackanapes, And pinch him most cruelly for his lecheries.
THE MEllKY W IVKS OlMVINDSOK.
[iNTUOD.
Mis. Pa. "Wliy llicii wc are revenged siilliciently. Pirst lie was carried and
tlirowne in the Thames, Next beaten well, I am sure youle witnes that.
Mi. For. He lay my life this makes him nothing fat.
Pa. A^'ell lets about this stratagem, I long
To see deceit deceived, and wrong have wrong.
For. AVell send lo Ealstade, and if he come thither,
Twil make us smile and laugh one moneth togither. \^Exit omnes.
Enter Host and Simple. — Host. What would thou have boore, what thick-
skin ? Speake, breath, discus, short, quick, briefe, snap.
Sim. Sir, I am sent from my M. to Sir John Ealstaffe.
Host. Sir John, theres his Castle, his standing-bed, his trundle-bed, his chamber
is painted about m ith the story of the prodigall, fresh and new, go knock, heele
speake like an Antri})ophiginian to thee : Knock I say.
Sim. Sir I should speak with an old woman that went up into his chamber.
Host. An old woman, the knight may be robbed. He call bully knight, bully
Sir John. Speake from thy Lungs military: it is thine host, thy Ephesian calls.
Fal. Now mine Host. {He speakes above, ed. 1G19).
Host. Here is a Bohemian tarter bully, tarries the comming downe of the fat
woman : Let her descend bully, let her descend, my chambers are honorable, pah
privasie, fie.
Fal. Indeed mine host there was a fat woman with me. But she is gone.
Enter Sir Jonisr. — Sim. Pray sir was it not the wise woman of Brainford?
Fal. Marry was it Musselshell, what would you ?
Sim. Marry sir my ma'ster Slender sent me to her, To know whether one Nim
that hath his chaine, Cousoned him of it, or no.
Fal. I talked with the woman about it.
Sim. And I pray sir what ses she ?
Fal. ]\Iarry she ses the very same man that Beguiled maister Slender of his
chaine, Cousoned him of it.
Sim. May I be bolde to tell my maister so sir ?
Fal. I tike, who more bolde.
Sim. I thanke you sir, I shall make my maister a glad man at these tydings,
God be with you sir. {Exit, ed. 1619).
Host. Thou art darkly sir John, thou art darkly. Was there a wise woman
with thee ?
Fal. Marry was there mine host, one that taught Me more wit then I learned
this 7. yeare, And I paid nothing for it. But was paid for my learning.
Enter Badolfe {Bardolfe, ed. 1619). — Bar. O Lord sir cousonage, plaine
cousonage.
Host. Why man, where be my horses ? where be the Germanes ?
Bar. Rid away with your horses : After 1 came beyond Maidenhead, They flung
me in a slow of my re, and away they ran.
Enter Doctor. — Hoc. Where be my Host de gartyre ?
Host. O here sir in perplexitie.
Hoc. I cannot tell vad be dad. But begar 1 will tell you van ting, Dear be a
Garmaine Duke come to de Court, Has cosened all de host {Hosts, ed. 1619) of
Branford, And Redding : begar I tell you for good will. Ha, ha, mine Host, am I
even met you. [Exit.
Enter Sir Hugh. — Sir Ha. Where is mine Host of the gartyr. Now my Host,
I would desire you looke you now. To have a care of your entertainments. For there
is three sorts of cosen garmombles. Is cosen all the Host of Maidenhead and Readings,
Now you are an honest man, and a scurvy beggerly lowsie knave beside : And can
point wrong places, I tell you for good will, grate why mine Host. [^Exit.
INTROD.]
THE MERUY AVIVES OE AVINDSOR.
Host. I am cosened Hugh, and coy Eardolfe, Sweet knight assist me, I am
cosened. \Exit.
Fal. Would all the worell were cosened for me, Eor I am cousoned and beaten
too. Well, I never prospered since I forswore My selfe at Primero : and my
winde Were but long inough to say my prayers, Ide repent, now from whence
come you ?
Enter Misteesse QriiCKLY. — Quic. Erom the two parties forsooth.
Fal. The divell take the one partie, And his dam the other, And theyle be botli
bestowed. I have endured more for their sakes. Then man is able to endure.
Qiiic. 0 Lord sir, they are the sorrowfulst creatures That ever lived : specially
mistresse Eord, Her husband hath beaten her that she is all Blacke and blew
poore soule.
Fal. What tellest me of blacke and blew, I have bene beaten all the colours in
the Eainbow, And in my escape like to a bene apprehended Eor a witch of
Bra'nford, and set in the stockes.
Quic. Well sir, she is a sorrowfull woman, And I hope when you lieare my
errant, Youle be perswaded to the contrarie.
Fal. Come goe with me into my chamber, He heare thee. [Exit omnes.
Enter Host and Eenton. — Host. Speake not to me sir, my mind is heavie, I
have had a great losse.
Fen. Yet heare me, and as I am a gentleman, He give you a hundred pound
toward your losse.
Host. Well sir He heare you, and at least keep your counsell.
Fen, Then thus my host. Tis not unknown to you,
The fervent love I beare to young Anne Page,
And mutally her love againe to mee:
But her father still against her choise.
Doth seeke to marrie her to foolish Slender,
And in a robe of white this night disguised,
Wherein fat Ealstaffe had a mightie scare.
Must Slender take her and carrie her to Catlen,
And there unknowne to any, marrie her.
Now her mother still against that match.
And firme for Doctor Cayus, in a robe of red
By her device, the Doctor must steale her thence,
And she hath given consent to goe with him.
Host. Now which means she to deceive, father or mother?
Fen. Both my good Host, to go along with me.
Now here it rests, that you would procure a priest,
And tarrie readie at the appointment place,
To give our hearts united matrimonie.
Host. But how will you come to steale her from among them ?
Fen. That hath sweet Nan and I agreed upon,
And by a robe of white, the which she weares.
With ribones pendant flaring bout her head,
I shalbe sure to know her, and convey her thence.
And bring her where the priest abides our comming,
And by thy furtherance there be married.
Host. AVell, husband your device, He to the Vicar,
Bring you the maide, you shall not lacke a Priest.
Fen. So shall I evermore be l)ound unto thee.
Besides He alwaies be thy faithfull friend. {Exit omnes.
232
THE MEIUIY AVIVES OF AVINDSOR
[iNTllOD.
Enter Sill Joiix, icilh a Bucks head npon him. — Fal. This is the tliirtl time,
well He venter,
They say there is good luck in odd numbers,
Jove transformed himselfe into a bull,
And I am here a Stag, and I thinke the fattest
In all A\'indsor forrest : well I stand here
For Horne the hunter, waiting my Does comming.
Enter mistris Page, and mistris Ford. — Mis. Pa. Sir John, where are
you ?
Fal. Art thou come my doe ? what and thou too ? Welcome Ladies.
Mi. For. I I sir John, I see you will not faile. Therefore you deserve far better
then our loves, But it grieves me for your late crosses.
Fal. This makes amends for all. Come divide me betweene you, each a hanch,
For my horns He bequeath them to your husbands, Do I speake like Horne the
hunter, ha?
Mis. Fa. God forgive me, what noise is this? \There is a noise of homes, the
two icomen nm aioay. Enter sir Hugh lihe a Satyre, and boyes drest like Fayries,
inistresse Qnicl'ly, like the Qiieene of Fayries : they sing a sony ahont hint, and
aftencard speake.]
Quic. You Fayries that do haunt these shady groves,
Looke round about the wood if you can espie
A mortall that doth haunt our sacred round :
If such a one you can espie, give him his due,
And leave not till you pinch him blacke and blew:
Give them their charge Puck ere they part away.
Sir Ha. Come hither Peane, go to the countrie houses,
And when you finde a slut that lies a sleepe.
And all her dishes foule, and roome unswept,
AVith your long nailes pinch her till she crie.
And sweare to mend her sluttish huswiferie.
Fai. I warrant you I will performe your will.
Hu. Where is Pead ? go you and see where Brokers sleep,
And fox-eyed Serjants with their mase,
Goe laie the Proctors in the street.
And pinch the lowsie Serjants face :
Spare none of these when they are a bed,
But such whose nose lookes plew and red.
Qnic. Away begon, his mind fulfill.
And looke that none of you stand still.
Some do that thing, some do this.
All do something, none amis.
Hir sir Hu. (Sir Hugh, ed. 1619). I smell a man of middle-earth.
Fal. God blesse me from that wealch Fairie.
Quic. Looke every one about this round.
And if that any here be found.
For his presumption in this place.
Spare neither legge, arme, head, nor face.
Sir Hu. See 1 have spied one by good luck,
His bodie man, his head a buck.
Fo.l. God send me good fortune now, and I care not.
Quic. Go strait, and do as I commaund,
And take a Taper in your hand,
ixTROD.] THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR.
2S3
And set it to liis fingers endes,
And if you see it him offends,
And that he starteth at the flame,
Then is he mortaU, know his name:
If with an E. it doth begin.
Why then be ehure he is full of sin.
About it then, and know the truth,
Of this same metamorphised youth.
Sir Hit. Give me the Tapers, I will try
And if that he love venery. [They put the Tapers to his fingers, and he starts.
Sir Hu. It is right indeed, he is full of lecheries and iniquitie.
Qtdc. A little distant from him stand,
And every one take hand in hand.
And compasse him within a ring.
First pinch him well, and after sing.
[Here they pinch him, and sing about him, and the Doctor comes one way and
steates aioay a hoy in red. And Slender another way he takes a hoy hi greene :
And Fenton steales misteris Anne, heing in lohite. And a noyse of hunting is made
within : and all the Fairies runne away. Falstaffe pulles of his huclcs head, and
rises up. And enters M. Page, M. Ford, and their wives, M. Shallow, Sir Hugh.
Fat. Horne the hunter quoth you : am I a ghost ? Sblood the Fairies hath
made a ghost of me : What hunting at this time at night ? He lay my life the
mad Prince of Wales Is stealing his fathers Deare. How now who have We
here, what is all Windsor stirring ? Are you there ?
Shal. God save you sir John Falstaffe.
Sir Hu. God plesse you sir John, God plesse you.
Pa. Why how now sir John, what a pair of horns in your hand ?
Ford. Tiiose homes he ment to place upon my head.
And M. Erooke and he should be the men :
Why how now sir John, why are you thus amazed ?
We know the Fairies man that pinched you so.
Your throwing in the Thames, your beating well.
And whats to come sir John, that can we tell.
Mi. Pa. Sir John tis thus, your dishonest meanes
To call our credits into question.
Did make us undertake to our best,
To turne your leaud lust to a merry Jest.
Fat. Jest, tis well, have I lived to these yeares To be gulled now, now to be ridden ?
Why then these were not Fairies ?
Mis. Pa. No sir John but boyes.
Fat. By the Lord I was twice or thrise in the mind They were not, and yet
the grosnesse Of the fopperie perswaded me they were. Well, and the fine wits
of the Court heare this, Thayle so whip me with their keene Jests, That thayle
melt me out like tallow. Drop by drop out of my grease. Boyes !
Sir Hu. I trust me boyes sir John : and I was Also a Fairie that did helpe to
pinch you.
Fal. I, tis well I am your May-pole, You have the start of mee. Am I ridden
[written, ed. 1619) too with a wealch goate? With a peece of toasted cheese?
Sir Hu. Butter is better than cheese sir John, You are all butter, butter.
For. There is a further matter yet sir John, There's 20. pound you borrowed of
M. Brooke Sir John, And it must be paid to M. Ford Sir John.
Mi. For. Nay husband let that go to make amends,
Forgive that sum, and so weele aU be friends.
n. 30 •
234
THE MEllRY WIVES OE AVINDSOH.
[iNTROD.
For. Well here is my hand, all's forgiven at last.
Fid. It halli cost me well, I have bene well pinched and washed.
Fnter the Doctoe. — Ili. Fa. Now M. Doctor, sonne I hope you are.
Doct. Sonne begar you be de ville voman, Begar I tinck to marry metres An,
and begar Tis a whorson garson Jack boy.
2lis. Fa. How a boy?
Loot. I begar a boy.
Fa. Nay be not angry wife, He tell thee true. It was my plot to deceive thee so:
And by this time your daughter's married To M. Slender, and see where he comes.
[Enter Slender.] Now sonne Slender, Where's your bride ?
Sleu. Eride, by Gods 1yd I tliinke theres never a man in the woreU hath that
crosse fortune that I have : begod I could cry for verie anger.
Pa. AVhy whats the matter sonne Slender ?
Slen. Sonne, nay by God I am none of your son.
Fa. No, why so ?
Slen. AYhy so God save me, tis a boy I have married.
Fa. How a boy? why did you mistake the word ?
Slen. No neither, for I came to her in red as you bad me, and I cried mum,
and hee cried budget, so weU as ever you heard, and I have married him.
Sir Hii. Jeshu M. Slender, cannot you see but marrie boyes ?
Fa. 0 I am vext at hart, what shal I do ?
Enter Fenton and Anne. — Mis Fa. Here comes the man that hath deceived
us all : How now daughter, where have you bin ?
An. At Church forsooth.
Fa. At Church, what have you done there ?
Fen. Married to me, nay sir never storme,
Tis done sir now, and cannot be undone.
Ford. Ifaith VL. Page never chafe your selfe, She hath made her choise wheras
her hart was fixt. Then tis in vaine for you to storme or fret.
Fal. I am glad yet then your arrow hath glanced.
Mi. For. Come mistris Page, He be bold with you,
Tis pitie to part love that is so true.
Mis. Fa. Altlio that I have missed in my intent, Yet I am glad my husbands
match was crossed, Here M. Eenton, take her, and God give thee joy.
Sir Hu. Come M. Page, you must needs agree.
Fo. I yfaith sir come, you see your wife is wel pleased [is pleased, ed. 1619).
Fa. I cannot tel, and yet my hart's well eased,
And yet it doth me good the Hoctor missed.
Come hither Eenton, and come hither daughter.
Go too, you might have stai'd for my good will
But since your choise is made of one you love,
Here take her Eenton, and both happie prove.
Sir Hu. I will also dance and eat plums at your weddings.
Ford. All parties pleased, now let us in to feast,
And laugh at Slender, and the Doctors jeast.
He hatli got the maiden, each of you a boy,
To waite upon you, so God give you joy.
And sir John EalstaflFe now shal you [yoii shall, ed. I6I9) keep your word,
Eor Brooke this night shaU lye with mistris Eord. [^Exit omnes.
It is worthy of remark, in confirmation of the opinions pre-
viously expressed, that in the title-page of the quarto, here
ivnioD.] THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR.
235
reprinted, Parson Evans is termed in error the Welch Knight, a
mistake which could hardly have emanated from any one
acquainted with the play, and shows that the title was probahly
compiled, in all its attractive dignity, by the publisher. lie
proceeds, in this extravagant title, to inform us that the comedy
"hath bene divers times acted by the right honorable my Lord
Chamberlaine's servants, both before her Majestic, and elsewhere,"
which means that it had been acted both before the Court, and at
the theatre. It is necessarily uncertain what amount of reliance
is to be placed upon this testimony; but it agrees very well with,
and is of course independent of, an old tradition, recorded by
Dennis in 1702, that the comedy w as written by the express com-
mand and direction of Q,ueen Elizabeth. The accoimt of the matter
given by Dennis occurs in the dedicatory epistle to his alteration
of the Merry Wives, entitled, ' The Comical Gallant, or the
Amours of Sir John Falstaffe,' 4to. Lond. 1702, in the course of
which he observes, — "When I first communicated the design
which I had of altering this comedy of Shakespear, I found that
I should have two sorts of people to deal with, who would
equally endeavour to obstruct my success. The one believed it to
be so admirable, that nothing ought to be added to it ; the others
fancied it to be so despicable, that any one's time would be lost
upon it. That this comedy was not despicable, I guess'd for
several reasons. First, 1 knew very well that it had pleas'd one
of the greatest queens that ever was in the world, great not only
for her wisdom in the arts of government, but for her knowledge
of polite learning, and her nice taste of the drama, for such a
taste we may be sure she had, by the relish which she had of
the ancients. This comedy was written at Iter command, and by
her direction, and she teas so eayer to see it acted, that she com-
manded it to he finished in fourteen days; and was afterwards, as
tradition tells us, very well pleas d at the representation. In the
second place, in the reign of King Charles the Second, when
people had an admirable taste of comedy, all those men of ex-
traordinary parts, who were the ornaments of that court, as the
late Duke of Buckingham, my Lord Normandy, my Lord Dorset,
my late Lord Rochester, Sir Charles Sidley, Dr. Frazer, Mr.
Savil, Mr. Buckley, were in love with the beauties of this
comedy. In the third place, I thought that after so long an
acquaintance as I had with the best comick poets, among the
antients and moderns, I might depend in some measure upon my
own judgment, and I thought I found here three or four extra-
230
THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOE.
[iNTROD.
ordinary characters, that were exactly dra'svn, and truly comical ;
and that I saw hesides in it some as happy touches as ever were
in comedy. Besides I had observed what success the character
of Fidstaffe had had in the First Part of Harry the Fourth. And
as the Falstatfe in the Merry Wives is certainly superiour to that
of the Second Part of Harry the Fourth, so it can hardly be said
to be inferior to that of the First." In the prologue to this play,
Dennis repeats the assertion that Shakespeare's comedy was
written in the short space of fourteen days.
Rowe, in 1709, gives rather a more circumstantial account.
Speaking of Queen Elizabeth, he says (Life of Shakespeare,
pp. 8, 9), " She was so well pleased with that admirable character
of FalstafF, in the two parts of Henry IV., that she commanded
him to continue it for one play more, and to show him in love :
this is said to be the occasion of his writing the Merry Wives of
Windsor. How well she was obeyed, the play itself is an
admirable proof." This evidence was followed by Gildon's
account of the same tradition, who, in 1710 (Remarks, &;c.,
p. 291), observes that "The fairies in the fifth act make a
handsome compliment to the queen, in her palace of Windsor,
who had obliged him to write a play of Sir John Falstaff in love,
and which / am very ivell assured he performed in a fortnight ; a
prodigious thing, when all is so well contrived, and carried on
without the least confusion." It will be perceived that, although
Gildon is in fact somewhat less circumstantial than Rowe, yet
Elizabeth could not very well have commanded Shakespeare to
exhibit the celebrated fat knight in love, if she had not been
previously introduced to him in another character. Pope,
Theobald, and later editors, appear to have taken their versions
of the tradition second-hand from Rowe.
Without accepting the whole of the particulars recorded by
these w riters, there seems to be little doubt that the Merry Wives
of Windsor was one of the plays of Shakespeare that "so did take
Eliza and our James." The assertion made by Arthur Johnson,
supported by the tradition, may fairly so far be considered de-
cisive ; although the earliest notice, yet discovered, of the
performance of the comedy, bears date so late as November,
1604, when it was acted at Court "by his Majesty's players."
This curious fact is ascertained from an entry in one of the Revels'
Books, containing the accounts from October 31st, 1604, to the
same day in 1605. The original manuscript is preserved in the
Audit Office, and it was printed by Mr. P. Cunningham in his
iNTEOD.] THE MEUEY WIVES OE WINDSOE. 237
* Extracts from the Accounts of the Revels at Court,' 8vo. 1842,
p. 203. The accompanying facsimile exhibits the manner in
which the entry appears in the manuscript, the play of Othello
having been performed at Whitehall just previously, and Measure
for Measure being the next one mentioned in the account; facts
which show the popularity of the w orks of the great dramatist
at the Court of James I.
The Merry Wives of Windsor was revived with great success
after the Restoration, the personification of the character of
Slender, which was performed by Wintershal, meeting with
peculiar approbation. In a manuscript list of plays acted by
the King's Company at the Red Bull, the ' Merry Wifes
of Windsor' is stated to have been represented on Friday,
November 9th, 1660, Henry IV. having been performed there
on the previous day. No separate copy of tlie play, however,
was printed between the year 1630, the date of a reprint of
the comedy from the first folio, and the commencement of the
following century; but there exists an old manuscript copy of
the Merry Wives, of uncertain date, transcribed probably before
the time of Rowe, which contains a vast number of alterations
and variations of the original text. It is unnecessary to say
tbey are not of the slightest authority, although they are curious
as contributing one or two minor emendations, and numerous
suggestions of Avanton and trivial changes. The manuscript is
entitled the "Merry Wives of Old Windsor," and being written in
a hand to imitate printing, the difficulty of assigning a precise date
238 THE MEllUY WIVES OE WINDSOR. [introd.
to it, from a consideration of tlie character of the hand-writing,
is greatly increased. It consists of a small quarto volume, the
title being conunenced in large characters, the word old being
nearly obliterated by a more recent hand ; but its introduction
into the name of the play shows that the writer was ignorant of
the locality, Old Windsor being at a considerable distance from
the real scene of the comedy. On the title are the lines by
Hugh Holland "upon the Lines and Life of the fFamous Scenieke
l*oet, the Author," the same verses which are prefixed to the
first folio. At the reverse of the title is a list of the Dramaiis
iViimWj WIVJE5 OPOLP
BY
5HAKE5TEAIlt
Personoi, which is curious as being, in all probability, the first
ever constructed for the present drama. In this list. Shallow
is termed, 'a Glocestershire justice, uncle to Master Slender;'
Hugh Evans, 'a Welch priest, curate and sclioole-master at
Windsor;' Page, or, as he is called, Mr. George Page, 'a rich
country gentleman in or neer Windsor ;' William Page is termed,
' Billy, schollar to Master Evans ;' Mr. Francis Ford, ' a rich
jealous curmudgeon of Windsor ;' Fenton, 'an expensive courtier
favord by Mrs. Anne ;' Sir John FalstafF, 'a fat old decayed
leacherous court officer;' Bardolph, Nym, and Pistol, 'his late
under officers, now hangers-on ;' and the Host of the Garter, 'a
merry, conceited, ranting inn-holder.' The greatest number of
alterations in the text occur in the speeches of Evans, which are
very carefully spelt to indicate his peculiar phraseology. O her
changes, also, are of frequent occurrence, and some of the most
INTROD.]
THE MEERY WIVES OF AVINDSOE.
239
important are mentioned in the notes. The reader must, how-
ever, guard carefully against any temptation to regard the readings
derived from such sources as being of the slightest critical value
or authority. The most curious feature in the manuscript is the
attempt to increase the impression of its local character by en-
titling it the Merry Wives of Old Windsor, a circumstance
which, at the same time, as observed previously, indicates that
the transcriber was altogether unacquainted with Windsor and
its neighbourhood. As a slight corroboration of this, it may be
observed that the manuscript reads Pitty-wary, in the place
of the incomprehensible Pitty-ward of the early printed
editions.
The edition of 1630, above referred to, is a small quarto,
reprinted from the first folio, with a few alterations that are
generally erroneous. This is the copy of the play as we now
possess it, and which is presumed, on account of some peculiar
allusions, to have been either written or amended after the
accession of James I. There is, first, the curious variation in
the first act, — " Now, Master Shallow, you '11 complain of me to
the King,'" where the quarto has Council, which latter may easily
be presumed to be an accidental reading derived from the
context, wdiile the allusion to the King is in keeping with the
other notices of the Wild Prince and Pointz. The opinion that
''these knights will hack," conveying, it is thought, a covert
satire at the king's prodigality in bestowing knighthood in the
beginning of his reign, may possibly indicate that this particular
passage was inserted in the seventeenth century. All reasoning,
however, of this kind, has been so frequently shown to be
fallacious, there is considerable hesitation in attempting to
draw a conclusion from such a circumstance.
A more important argument is derived from the notice of
Page's fallow^ greyhound stated to have been outrun on Cotsale,
or Cotswold, meaning the downs on the Cotswold hills in
Gloucestershire; a notice which is presumed, with some pro-
bability, to refer to the celebration of the Cotswold games,
which were revived by Captain Dover in the reign of James 1.
On the other hand, the passage in the text may well be con-
sidered to apply to coursing in general, without any particular
reference to the coursing in vogue at the games themselves,
which, however, seems to have been a great feature in those
entertainments. It appears from the very curious frontispiece
to the Annalia Dubrensia, a collection of commendatorv verses
240
THE MEEEY WIVES OE WINDSOR.
[iNTROD.
upon the yeerely celebration of Mr. Robert Dover's Olimpick
Games upon Cotswold IIills,"4to. Lond. 1636, that these games
consisted of wresthng, leaping, pitching the bar, handling the
pike, dancing of women, various kinds of hunting, and coursing
the hare with greyhounds. There is also a portrait of Dover on
horseback, dressed in one of the suits of James I., and, on the
top, a wooden castle, whence guns were frequently discharged
during the progress of the games. The prominence given to the
hunting and coursing matches, on these occasions, certainly
imply the possibility of there being a particular allusion to them
in the text: —
IXTROD.]
THE MEHEY WIVES OE WINDSOE.
241
Eacli huntsman there with skill and hope brings forth
His best bred doggs, to shew their ablest worth :
Acteon nere had such, so true, so fleet.
Nor so well mouth'd, as doe on Cotswold meet.
These better natur'd bee, as doth appeare ;
None kill their masters, though that some bee deare.
Then thro we they in their couples, and one cry
Of many parkes do ring about the skie.
And eccho 'mongst the hills ; while the fear'd hare,
Nor leggs, nor lunges, nor labor best doth spare
T' outstretch their fury. Then each huntsman calls
Unto his working dogges ; at last downe falls
The heart-broke hare, and clanging homes do sound
Victorious changes on Cotswoldian ground.
The swallow-footed grehound hath the prize,
A silver-studded coller — who out-flies
The rest in lightning's speed, who first comes by
His strayning copes-mates, with celeritie
Turnes his aflPrighted game, then coates againe
His forward rivall on the sencelesse plaine.
And, after Laborinthian turnes, surprise
The game, whilst he doth pant her obsequies.
Antony Wood, speaking of the Cotswold games, observes
that they " were begun, and continued, at a certain time of the
year, for forty years, by one Robert Dover, an attorney of
Burton-on-the-Heath in Warwickshire, who did, with leave from
King James I., select a place on Cotsw old-hills in Glocestershire,
whereon these games should be acted:
Dover was constantly there in person,
well mounted and accoutred, and was
the chief director and manager of those
games, even till the rascally rebellion was
begun by the Presbyterians, which gave a stop to their proceed-
ings, and spoiled all that was generous and ingenious else-
where." Dover himself asserts that he "was bold, for better
recreation, to invent these sports;" and there cannot be much
doubt that the forty years are not to be reckoned backwards
from the publication of the Annalia, but rather that they are to
be considered as referring to a period from the accession of
James, till the Civil Wars completely put an end to the amuse-
ments. The verses of Ben Jonson on the subject, in which he
observes that the Cotswold sports " renew the glories of our
blessed Jeames," appear to refer merely, as far as those words
may be interpreted, to the costume of Dover; but Randolph's
verses, in the 1638 edition (p. 114) of his poems, are entitled,
'An Eglogue on the noble Assemblies revived on Cotswold Hills
31
242
THE MEHIIY WIVES OF WINDSOll.
[[NTROD.
by ^I. Robert Dover,' whicb seems to imply either that some
<;-anies of the kind were in vogue before Dover's time, or that
they had been discontinued some years after their first institu-
tion by Dover, and afterwards revived. The probabihty appears
to be that annual games of some description have been celebrated
on these hills from time immemorial, — provincial amusements
not restricted to the shepherds' festivals on the Cotswold
described in the Polyolbion; in the same manner that they
have been continued up to our times on every Whitsun Thursday
and Friday. The principal amusements are backsword-playing,
wrestling, horse, poney, and donkey races, for belts and silver
cups piu'chased by subscription; the chief competitors for all the
athletic games being natives of Campden, Weston Subedge,
Ebrington, Mickleton, and the adjacent parishes. Fifty years
ago, these people ranked high as wrestlers and backsword
players, and the meeting was not only looked forward to by
them as the great holiday of the neighbourhood, but was well
attended by all classes of society. It can scarcely be thought
but that a festival, which thus survived the civil wars for so long
a period, must have held its tradition in the minds of the
people beyond the period assigned to the sports instituted by
Dover. The site of his games, however, is still remembered in
the name of Dover's
Hill, which is situated
about a mile from
Campden, in the pa-
rish of Weston Sub-
edge, in sight of the
vale of Evesham and °^ " ^
of a portion of Warwickshire.
The next important evidence to be con-
sidered in the question of the chronology, is
the remarkable satire in the first act on Sir
Thomas Lucy, who died in the year 1600.
It proves, I think, all but incontestably that
the comedy was written in the sixteenth cen-
tury; for where is the vindication derived from
satire on the dead? The allusion to the arms
of the Lucy's is unquestionable and unques-
tioned; and the incident mentioned of killing
the deer, — stolen, as it is written in the quarto
— surely must refer to the celebrated anecdote elsewhere
1-
INTllOD.]
THE MEllEY WIVES OE WINDSOE.
243
mentioned. There is a tame confession hinted at by Page,
but it only serves to aggravate the amusing recital of the
offence ; and it seems to be an expansion of reasoning to regard
it in any more serious light. The introduction of an incident,
which refers to so early a period in the author's life, is a strong
testimony to the probability that the comedy was one of his
early compositions.
Another allusion of a singularly curious character, in the
fourth act, is also confirmatory of the assigning a very early
period to the original production of the comedy. The three
"couzin Germans, that has cozened all the hosts of Readings,
of ^laidenhead, of Colebrook, of
horses and money," are, in the
first quarto, "three sorts of cosen
garmomhles is cosen all the host
of Maidenhead and Readings;"
the same authority also inform-
ing us that the German Duke
had cozened " all de host of
Bradford and Redding." The
German Duke who did visit
Windsor was the Duke of Wiir-
temberg, who came over to this
country in the latter part of the
year 1592, an account of his journey having been fortunately
preserved by his private secretary, and published some years
afterwards under the title of "Kurtze vnd Warhaffte Beschrei-
bung der Badenfahrt: Welche der Durchleuchtig Ilochgeborn
Fiirst und Herr, Herr Friderich, Ilertzog zu Wurttemberg unnd
Teckh, Grave zu Mtimppelgart, Herz zu Ileidenheim, Ritter der
beeden Uhralten Koniglichen Orden, in Franckreich S. Michaels,
unnd Flosenbands in Engelland, &c. In negst abgeloffenem
1592 Jahr," 4to. Tubingen, 1602; republished in the fol-
lowing year, at the same place, with an account of the travels of
the Count into Italy. A portrait of the duke occurs on the
reverse of the title-page, the above engraving of the upper
portion of it svifficiently exhibiting his personal appearance;
the original comprises a representation of the elaborate dress
in which he was habited. The title of Mumpelgart was the one
popidarly assigned to the Duke, whilst he was in this country,
as appears from a passport hereafter noticed ; and the quarto of
the Merry Wives distinctly connects the notice in the play with
244!
TUE MERllY WIVES OF WINDSOJl.
[iNTROD.
the Count, by the ehiuisy inversion of garmomhles. Such an
alhision, and the entire scene of the host's perplexity, would, as
^Ir. Knight observes, have had a peculiar relish for the mend)ers
of a Court to whom the German had recently paid a visit. Hie
Duke landed at Dover in the month of August, 1592, and pro-
ceeding thence on horseback, as far as Gravesend, came to
liondon the remainder of the way by water. After remaining
a short time in the metropolis, on the sixteenth of August he
went to join the Court of Elizabeth at Reading, dining at
Ilounslow, and thus doubtlessly taking the road which passed
through Brentford. He stopped the night at Maidenhead,
travelling on the ITovmslow road which went by Colebrook, and
proceeded, on the following morning, to Reading. The journey
was taken on the old Bristol and London road, thus noted in the
ancient tables, — "From Reading to Maydenliead, x. mi, from
^laydenhead to Colbroke, vii. mi, from Colbroke to London, xv.
mi," A briefe Treatise conteyning many proper Tables and easie
Rules, 12mo. 1582. On the nineteenth of August, the Count
left Reading for Windsor, where he received great attentions, was
shown the noteworthy sights of the Castle, and hunted in the royal
park ; but he remained there a very short time, leaving Windsor
on the twenty-first of August for Hampton-Court, passing through
a portion of the forest, probably taking the road through Staines.
All this is exceedingly curious, and importantly illustrative of
the play. The circumstances mentioned by Shakespeare exactly
agree, even to the names of every locality, in connexion with
the subject, that is named in the comedy; arid the Count unques-
tionably travelled with the possession of the peculiar privileges
then accorded to distinguished visitors to the Court. He was
honored, in fact, with the use of one of the Queen's coaches,
attended by a page of honor, and "travelled from London in
this coach, and several post horses, towards the royal residence."
On such an occasion, the post-horses would have to be furnished
by the various inn-keepers free of expense; — "cozenage! mere
cozenage," as Master Bardolpli says. The scene is, in all pro-
bability, an exaggerated satire on the visit of the Duke to
Windsor; an aUusion that would have been well understood by
the Court within a year or two after its occurrence; and the
facility by w hich the history of the event is unravelled, is one of
the most curious circumstances, in its way, in Shaksperian
criticism. The subject appears, indeed, to be sufficiently
interesting to justify the introduction of the entire account of
TNTROD.]
THE MEEEY WIVES OF WINDSOR.
215
the Duke's visit to the Court, omitting a few particulars that
seem to he perfectly irrelevant to the present suhject; hecausea
careful perusal of the Secretary's narrative clearly shows that
the Duke's course corresponds exactly with the allusions in the
comedy. It is due to Mr. Knight to state that the merit of first
indicating this important illustration is to be attributed to him ;
but it is believed that the account of the matter now given is so
enlarged, that it will have, in many important particulars, the
interest of novelty. The exact coincidences between the toAvns
mentioned in the play, and those through which it is proved the
Duke must have travelled, are at least here for the first time
satisfactorily exhibited; and there are several other circumstances,
the curiosity of which will be appreciated by the reader of the
following narration, which has been translated from the original
German by an intelligent and learned scholar.
As soon as Elizabeth had been made officially acquainted
with the Count's arrival, "she immediately," says Rathgeb,
"despatched one of her pages in a coach towards London, in
order to fetch His Highness from there, and to convey him to
the residence of tlie Court at Reiding (Reading). His Highness
therefore, on the 16tli Augi^st, accompanied by this page of
honor, travelled from London in this Coach, and several post
horses, towards the Royal residence. Previously, however, His
Highness had ordered a suit of entirely black velvet to be
provided for each of his pages and attendants. At noon we
dined at Honssloe (Hounslow), an English village. Towards
night we reached Maidenhaide (Maidenhead), a beautiful large
place or town, but which, like all other English towns, is without
walls : here we Avere met by the French Ambassador Beauvois.
On the morning of the 17th August, in company with the said
French Ambassador, we arrived about noon at Reiding, at which
place Her Majesty has her court residence in England, and were
lodged at the farm-house of the Steward ; from here to London
is barely 32 miles. His Highness here undressed, and put on
other apparel, when the Earl of Exces (Essex), one of the most
distinguished Lords in England, also Royal Councillor, Chief
Master of the Horse, and Knight of the Royal Order called
La Chartiere (the Garter), visited his Highness at his lodging,
welcomed him in Her Majesty's name, and invited His Highness
to take dinner in his, the Earl's apartments. To which. His
Highness, after returning due thanks, was conveyed in a coach,
and was feasted most sumptuously, where the Earl entertained
24G
THE MERRY WIVES OE WINDSOU.
[iNTROD.
His lliiiliness with sucli sweet and enclmnting music, that he
was hiji-hly astonished at it. After the repjist was ended, His
Hi«ihness was a<i-{iin aeeonipanied hy the same distinguished
English Lord to his h)dgiug, hut early in the afternoon, he was
sunmioned hy Her Majesty, and fetehed hy others, and was
eondueted to the Queen's private apartments. Her Majesty
was, at that time, in rather a mean room, surrounded hy her
])rineipal Counsellors and Ladies in waiting in Court-dresses.
His Highness was then introduced hy the French Amhassador,
and after having made a reverent and dutifid oheisanee to her
^lajesty, was received hy her in a very friendly and gracious
manner, and, for some length of time. Her Majesty conversed
with him on various suhjects, and that openly, so that any in
the apartment might understand it. His Highnesses pages, as
well as all the rest of us, were allowed to enter — nay even
great English Lords made way for us, that we might the better
see the Queen, a thing, indeed, which rarely occurs to the
servants of foreign Ambassadors. After having again made a
reverent obeisance, His Highness went to his lodging, and in
the afternoon of the 18th August, had another audience of Her
IMajesty, on which occasion she herself made and delivered an
appropriate speech, in the presence of the Lord Beauvois, in the
French language, which, together with many others, Her
IMajesty understands, and speaks very well; and as, as before
said. Her ^lajesty held the Lord Beauvois in special favour, after
he had been conversing wdth Her Majesty very lively and good-
hum ouredly, he at length prevailed upon her actually to strike
her musical instrument, the strings of which were alternately
gold and silver, which she executed very sweetly and skilfully.
Yet notwithstanding that Her Majesty was at this time in her
()7tli (sic) year, seeing that she was chosen Queen on the 16
November, 1558, in the 33rd year of her age, and has thus
borne the heavy burthen of ruling a kingdom thirty-four years,
she need not indeed — to judge both from her person and appear-
ance, yield to a young girl of sixteen years. She has a very
dignified, serious and royal look, and rules her kingdom with
great discretion, in desirable peace, felicity, and in the fear of
God. She has, by God's help and assistance, known well how
to meet her enemies hitherto: witness that mighty Spanish
Armada, which a few years ago w^as scattered between Dover
and Calais, and beaten by the English enemy of inferior force.
Hence she frequently uses this motto: — Si Dens pro nobis, qiiis
INTROD.]
THE MEERY WIVES OE WINDSOR.
217
contra nos: which she, on this occasion, also employed, when
the conversation happened to turn upon that same Spanish
defeat. After a long conversation. His Highness took humhle
leave of ITer Majesty, and departed to his lodging, where, in the
evening, he gave a sumptuous hanquet and feast to the Earl of
Essex, the French Ambassador, and other distinguished Lords of
high rank."
After a brief account of Readino* and the Court, Rath":eb
proceeds to say, — " But since, on the 19th August, Her Majesty
had left Reading with her Court, His Highness, in company with
the French Ambassador, Beauvois, took their departure again
towards London, and in the evening arrived at Windsort, an
English town twelve miles from Reading. It had pleased Her
Majesty to depute an old distinguished English lord to attend
His Highness, and she had commissioned and directed him not
only to show His Highness the splendid Koyal Castle at Windsort,
but also to amuse him by the way with shooting and hunting
red-deer: for you must know that, in the vicinity of this same
place, Winsort, there are upwards of sixty parks which are full
of game of all colours, and so contiguous, that when they want
to have a glorious and royal sport, the animals can be driven
out of one enclosure into another, and so on, all of which are
encompassed by fences. And thus it happened: the huntsmen
who had been ordered for the occasion, and who live in splendid
separate lodges in these parks, made some capital sport for His
Highness. In the first enclosure His Highness shot off a leg of a
fallow-deer, wdiich (i. e. the deer) the dogs soon after caught.
In the second, they chased a stag for a long time backwards and
forwards with greyhounds or particularly good dogs, over an
extensive and delightful plain: at length His Highness shot Jiim
in front with an English cross-bow, and this deer the dogs
finally worried and caught. In the third, the greyhounds
chased a deer, but much too soon, for they caught it directly,
even before it could get out into the open plain. These three
stags were brought to Winsort, and presented to His Highness;
one of which was taken to his lodging, and sent as a present to
the aforesaid Lord of Beauvois, the French x^mbassador. The
next day, being Sunday, the 20th August, His Highness was
conducted by the English Deputy to the magnificent and glorious
Palace or Castle. This Castle stands upon a knoll (BiUiel) or
hill: in the outer or first court, there is a very beautiful and
immensely large Church, with a flat even roof covered with
218
THE MEIIRY WIVES OE WINDSOR.
[iNTROD.
lead. In this cluircli His ITifflmcss listened for more than an
hoin* to the charming nnisic, the nsnal ceremonies, and the
En«j;lish sermon. The nmsic, especially the organ, was exqui-
sitely j)layed, for at times you could hear the sound of cornets,
tlutes, then tifes and other instruments: and there was likewise
a little hoy who sang so sweetly amongst it all, and threw such
a charm over the music with his little tongue, that it was really
wonderful to listen to him. For the rest, their ceremonies were
very similar to the Papists, as above mentioned, with singing
and all the rest. After the music, which lasted a long time,
had ended, a Minister or Preacher w ent up into the Pulpit, and
preached in English; and soon afterwards, it being noon, His
Highness went to dinner. In the before-named outer court,
seventeen poor Knights, who have conducted themselves bravely
in battle, either by sea or land, have their dwellings; they have
in consequence, as a remuneration and benefice, in addition to
their lodgings, each a hundred crowns yearly to spend, which is
given by the Q,ueen, as well as a suit of clothes. In the said
church there hang on both sides the shields, helmets, and
armour of the Knights of the royal order called La chartiere,
which is a highly esteemed order, and which not many can
obtain ; and when a person is received into this order, he is,
as it were, expected to make some present to these said old and
poor knights. His Highness invited some of them as his guests
both to dinner and supper. After dinner. His Highness went
with the English and French deputies and ambassadors to the
royal castle Windsort, in order to inspect it and all that was
worth seeing therein. And it is, in truth, a right royal, and
splendid structure, built entirely of free-stone (notwithstanding
that this is not frequently to be met with in this country, and
cannot be procured without enormous and incalculable expense),
from the very foundation up to the roof; it covers a large area,
and the innermost court is quadrangular, of a bow-shot in length
and width; in the midst of which is a curiously wrought foun-
tain entirely of lead, several fathoms high ; in fact all the roofs
are covered entirely with lead, which induced His Highness
himself to carve his name in the lead upon the highest tower.
Besides these, we were shown very beautiful royal bed-hangings
and tapestries of pure gold and silk, likewise a genuine unicorn,
and similar costly things, that you cannot well speak enough of
them. When His Highness had seen all these, and had spent a
long while in doing so, he drove down to the university of that
INTUOD.] THE MEHHY WIVES OP AVINDSOE.
21-9
place (Eton College), wherein, however, there Avas nothing par-
ticular to he seen. The next day, 21st August, he departed
from Windsort, and hj the way had pleasant pastime in the
parks with the game : in one of the parks, llis Highness shot tw^o
fallow-deer, the one with a gun, the other with an English
cross-bow, which last we were obliged to folloAV a very long
while, until at length a stray drawing, or blood-hound, so en lied
from his wonderful art and peculiar nature, quite distinct from
several hundred others, pursued it by himself so perseveringly,
that at last the wounded stag ran to one side of a brook, and
the dog to the other, and were found very much distressed, and
the stag, which could go no further, was taken by huntsmen,
and the hound feasted with its blood. After this glorious sport,
we had some cold meat in a fine old English farm-house, and
in the afternoon we were conducted to see the fine and truly
beautiful royal castle called Hamtoncourt." Here the narrative,
as far as it is connected wath the Merry Wives of Windsor, is
brought to a conclusion. The reader will observe, it distinctly
shows there was a ducal visitor to Windsor, in the year 1592,
who has the strongest claims to be considered the personage
alluded to by the poet.
The Duke of Wiirtemburg was invested with the order of
the Garter in the year 1603, and the account of the investment,
written by Cellius, and pubhshed in 1605, repeats some of the
particulars above quoted, but nothing further of any importance
in connection with the present subject. It appears that wdien
about to leave England in 1592, the Duke and his suite were
furnished with the following passport, which is thus curiously
given in the old German account of his travels: — "Theras this
noblman, Connte Mombeliard, is to passe ouer Contrye us
England, in to the lowe Contryes, Thise Schalbe to wil and
command you in beer Majte. name for such, and is beer plensure
to see him fournissed With post horses in his trauail to the Sen
side, and ther to soecke up such scliippinge as schalbe fit for his
transportations, he pay nothbig for the same, for wich tis schalbe
your sufficient warranti soo see that you faile noth therof at
your perilles. From Bifleete, the 2 uf September, 1592. Yur
friend, C. Howard." This passport was addressed "To al
Justices of Pence, Maiors, Bayliffes, and al other her ^lajeste
officiers, in especial to my owne officiers of te Admyraltye." In
the original, one sentence, here corrupted, was probably, " for
such is her pleasure."
II. 32
250
THE MEIUIY AVIVES OF WINDSOll.
[iNTItOD.
The other notes of tunc may be easily dis])osed of. Aceord-
iiig to jNljilone, the alhision to the reg-iou of Guiana shows tliat
the comedy ^yas written after Sir AYalter Raleigh's return from
that country in the year 159G : and the notice of coaches is
presmned, hy the same writer, to indicate that the play nnist
have been composed after they had come into general use about
the year 1605. Cliahncrs imagines that the Merry Wives was
written in 159G, from the circumstance of finding two words
common to the play and to Lodge's Devils Incarnate, 4to, 1596.
All these kinds of arguments are of very small weight, and may
safely be dismissed from any serious consideration. Of more
value is the well-known fact of Every Man in his Humour
having been produced at the Globe in 1598, the character of
Kitely bearing a strong degree of similarity to that of Ford; and
Shakespeare was seldom a copyist of character.
Leaving the question of the chronology, there remains to
consider points, if possible, of greater difficulty and uncertainty,
and to regard the Merry Wives of Windsor in connexion with
the historical plays. Was it written, or, rather, is it to be read,
after the fiist part of Henry IV., after the second part, after
Henry V., or before these dramas? The question is of course
now to be considered without reference to the opinion, that the
comedy may most advantageously be treated as entirely inde-
pendent of the latter-mentioned plays. I confess that the
difficulty of discovering an hypothesis which will satisfy all the
conditions of the problem, and enable us to reconcile the
apparently contradictory evidence on this subject, is almost
insurmountable ; and little more can be accomplished beyond
jDlaeing a summary of the evidence before the reader. First,
let us consider IVIistress Quickly, a character common to the
two parts of Henry IV., Henry V., and the Merry Waives of
W^indsor. In the first part of Henry IV., she is married to the
Host of the Boar's Head ; in the second part, she is 'a poor
Widow of Eastcheap,' according to her own account, and Falstaff
swore 'to me then, as I was washing thy wound, to marry me,
and make me my lady thy wife ;' and in Henry V., we find her
the wife of Pistol, although Nym had been 'troth-plight' to her.
But, in the Merry Wives, she denies being a wife, yet still she
is termed Mistress Quickly, and has, apparently, had no
previous knowledge of Falstaff ; for, if Mrs. Quickly had been
Dr. Caius's servant during her widowhood, Falstaff could not
have failed to recognize, instead of treating her as a stranger.
INTROD.]
THE MEEEY WIVES OE WINDSOR.
251
In Henry V., she says to Pistol, ^Pr'ythee, honey-sweet hushand,
let me hring thee to Staines,' a town certainly not far from
Windsor ; but this cannot be considered as involving any neces-
sary connexion between the plays. It is quite impossible, under
any supposition of date, to reconcile the Quickly of the Merry
Wives with the Quickly of the historical plays. If it be
presumed that the Merry Wives is first of all in order, how is it
possible that Mistress Quickly, who is not a wife, could meet
Falstaff at Windsor, and not recognize the hero of the Boar's
Head ? Equal difficulties attend any other similar conjecture —
as to whether she was introduced on the stage as Dr. Caius's
nurse, or his dry nurse, or his cook, or his laundry, after the
first or second parts of Henry IV., or after Henry V. The
latter supposition, indeed, does not involve the difficulty of her
widowhood, but it does comprise others of equal weight, that
are too obvious to require special notice.
The character of Pistol is common to the second part of
Henry IV., Henry V., and the Merry Wives of Windsor. There
can, in this case, at least, be little question of the identity of the
individual. The Pistol who says, ' Shall dunghiU curs confront
the Helicons, &c.,' is the same classical braggadocio who ex-
claims, in indignation, at the insult offered to him when
commanded, by his captain, to bear a letter to the merry wives,
— ' Shall I sir Pandarus of Troy become, &c.' Mr. Knight sa^^s
that Pistol, Bardolph, and ISym, are FalstafF's servants in the
Merry Wives, and his soldiers in the historical plays ; but they
were probably both servants and soldiers in all four plays. In
the Merry Wives, Falstaff swears that they were Ujood soldiers
and tall fellows.' Pistol says, 'Away sir Corporal Nym.' There
is 'the swaggering vein of Ancient Pistol and Corporal Nym'
mentioned on the title of the first edition of the original quarto ;
and, under any circumstances, these personages can scarcely be
considered in the historical plays as soldiers in the strict sense
of the word, more than Falstaff as a captain. At the Boar's
Head they were his servants ; and they were, perhaps, not less
so when they accompanied their master to the wars. The
independence of Pistol's character is sustained in the INIerry
Wives, with one single exception ; and his conversation, both in
the quarto and in the perfect drama, is similar to that used
by him in the other plays in which he is introduced. But,
althouo'h the characteristics of Pistol are essentially the same in
all three plays, yet the circumstances are most unaccountably
252
THE MEIUIY WIVES OE WIXDSOU.
[iNTROD.
altered ; for, in this case, likewise, only one theory will reconeile
his ])osition in the ^lerry Wives with that in whieh he is placed
in llenry IV. and in Henry V. In the former, he is disehar<;ed hy
Falstatf: he <>;oes forth to open his metaphorical oyster with his
sword, to try his fortnnes in the world ; hut the ' swaggering
rascal' is introduced in the second part of Henry IV. as
FalstafF's ancient, and challenging him in a cup of sack.
Mistress Quickly calls him Captain Pistol ; and, when he
quarrels with Doll Tearsheet, the ' No more. Pistol ; I w ould
not have you go off here ; discharge yourself of our company,
Pistol,' is certainly characteristic of the same master Avho says,
' No quips now, Pistol.' FalstafF makes him 'vanish like hail
stones' in the Merry Wives : he thrusts him down stairs in
Henry IV., saying, 'a rascal to hrave me I' FalstafF also tells
him he will douhle-eharge him with dignities, Avhen he
hrouglit the news of the king's death. Mistress Quickly was
not even acquainted with her future hushand, in the Merry
Wives. How, then, can the character of Pistol, heing intro-
duced into that play, be reconcileable on any other supposition
than that the story of the Merry Wives altogether precedes that
of the historical plays ?
Bardolph is mentioned hy Falstaff, in the first part of
Henry IV., as having been in his service thirty- two years ; — ' I
have maintained that salamander of yours with fire, any time
this two and thirty years.' The salamander of that historical
play is the tinder-box of the Merry Wives. Bardolph does not
converse with Falstaff, in Henry IV., in a manner that would
imply that it was after he had been installed as drawer to the
Host of the Garter. If FalstafF had been at Windsor in the early
period of his career, he would not have said, 'Bardolph, follow
him; a tapster is a good trade: an old cloak makes a ncAV jerkin;
a withered serving-man a fresh tapster.' Bardolph could scarcely
have been a withered serving-man, if the Merry Wives be sup-
posed to precede the three other plays. In the second part of
Henry IV., Mistress Quickly says she had known FalstafF 'these
twenty-nine years, come peascod time ;' yet, if it were the
same Quickly who was first introduced to FalstafF at Windsor,
she must have known him at least thirty-two years; for
Bardolph was in his service at that time. This, perhaps, can
scarcely be esteemed a fair argument: but in act iii., sc. 2.,
Bardolph does not know Justice Shallow; although, if the
Merry Wives precedes Henry IV., he must have recognized the
iKTEOD.] THE MEHEY AVIYES OE WINDSOE. 253
'poor esquire of this county, and one of the king's justices of
the peace/ Would Rohert Shallow, 'esquire in the county of
Gloster, justice of peace, and coram,' have said, 'Give nie your
hand, master Bardolph,' to a withered serving-man, who had
fallen to the office of tapster? It seems that the 'fuel that main-
tained that fire,' being all the riches Bardolph got in his service,
refer partly to Bardolph's residence at Windsor ; and if so, the
introduction of Bardolph into the Merry Wives of Windsor,
affords a strong evidence that the comedy must be read after the
two parts of Henry IV.
Bardolph is introduced in all four plays, but Corporal Nym
is found only in the Merry Wives and Henry V. Nym's con-
versation in both these plays is distinguished by the frequent
repetition of the word humour. In some instances, the very
same phrases occur. He says, 'The king hath run bad humours
on the knight;' alluding to Hal's treatment of him after his
succession to the throne. The same expression is used by him in
the first act of the Merry Wives. I think the introduction of that
character in the Merry AYives and Henry V. wholly unaccount-
able, if the Merry Wives precedes all the historical plays. It is
not at all likely that, if this had been the case, no allusion
whatever to Bardolph's 'sworn brother in filching' should occur
in the two parts of Henry IV. I am now taking it for granted,
as a conjecture wholly unsupported by the slightest direct evi-
dence, that the opinion of the fat knight of the ]Merry Wives
and of the histories having originally been two different and
distinct creations of character, is wholly untenable.
And then, with respect to Justice Shallow, I do not see tiiat
the uncertainty of what he could be doing at Windsor involves
an argument on any side of the question. In the second part
of Henry IV., it was fifty-five years since he had entered at
Clement's Inn; and in the Merry Wives he says, 'I am four-
score.' Falstaff, in act iv., sc. 4, says, 'I'll through Glostershire,
and there will I visit master Robert Shallow, esquire; I have
him already tempering between my finger and my thumb, and
shortly will I seal with him.' At this visit, perhaps, Falstaff
borrowed the thousand pounds; but when could he, to use
Shallow's words, 'have beaten my men, killed my deer, and
broke open my lodge?' This outrage must have been after the
large loan, and his hospitable reception in Gloucestershire. I do
not see anything unreasonable in the supposition that it hap-
pened after Falstaff 's banishment from the person of Henry V.;
THE MEllKY WIVES OE WINDSOU.
[iN'IROD.
and this also affords an arp^nincnt in favour of the later period
of the produetion of the Merry Wives. Another difficulty may
also he mentioned. The ])a<»e that Prince Henry gave Falstaff
is o-iven hy him to ^Irs. Pa<;*e, in the Merry Wives, and yet is
introduced in the second })art of Henry IV. and Henry V.
And last, thou<!:li not least, let us consider the fat knight
himself, the only remaining irregular humorist introduced into
the ]Merry Wives, and into the historical plays. Inferior he may
he in the former to the wit of the Boar's Head; but is there
sufficient dissimUarify of character to justify us in believing the
Falstaff of the IMerry Wives, and the Oldcastle of Henry IV., to
have been originally two different creations of character? The
'latter spring,' and the 'AUhallown summer' are but revived in
the aged sinner of Windsor Park, who is described as 'old, cold,
^^'itllered, and of intolerable entrails,' and 'as poor as Job, and as
wicked as his wife.' The same 'wliale with so many tuns of oil'
who considered 'my hostess a most sweet wench,' could with
great propriety admire Mrs. Ford, who was not young, and
JMistress Page, the mother of pretty virginity, and probably,
therefore, as old as her companion. If the tradition be correct
that Elizabeth commanded Shakespeare to exhibit Falstaff in
love, we must consider our great dramatist compromising his
original character of Oldcastle, or Falstaff, as little as possible, by
not drawing him actually smitten with the tender passion, which
would have completely destroyed all former notions concerning
him, but bringing his addiction to the fair sex more prominently
before the spectator, and thus obeying the royal command
without infringing more than possible on his first ideas. Ben
Jonson says, 'His wit was in his own power, would the rule of
it had been so too.' This looks like a confirmation of the tra-
dition. Thus, observes Dr. Johnson, 'the poet approached as
near as he could to the work enjoined him; yet, having perhaps
in the former plays completed his own idea, seems not to have
been able to give Falstaff all his former power of entertainment.'
In Henry IV., the prince describes him as 'that reverend vice,
that grey iniquity, that father ruffian, that vanity in years,' and
'that villanous abominable misleader of youth, Falstaff, that old
white-bearded Satan.' In the Merry Wives, he is likewise
always mentioned as an aged person. In the second part of
Henry IV., he describes himself 'as poor as Job,' the same ex-
pression being used in the Merry Wives. The letter of Jack
Falstaff to Prince Henry, in act ii., sc. 2, of the second part of
ixTROD.] THE MEHHY WIVES OE WINDSOR.
255
Henry IV., is also remarkably similar in style with the knight's
love-letter to Mistress Page, in aet ii., sc. 1, of the Merry Wives;
and both conclude in a like manner.
Too much stress has, perhaps, been laid by the critics on the
lavish manner in which Falstaff is discovered in the Merry Wives
of Windsor to be living at the Garter Inn. He sits at ten pounds
a Aveek, and is an emperor in his expense. I see nothing very
improbable in the conjecture, without reducing fiction too much
to positive fact, but merely considering the circumstances as they
must have arisen and reiuained in the dramatist's mind, that
this was after his banishment from the person of the prince,
who says, —
Eor competence of life I will allow you,
That lack of means enforce you not to evil.
Prince John, also, adds immediately afterwards: —
I like this fair proceeding of the king's :
He hath intent, his iconted followers
Shall all be very ivell provided for ;
But all are banish'd, till their conversations
Appear more wise and modest to the world.
FalstaiF may then have been living at Windsor, with his
former followers, on an allowance from the young king: but that
ten pounds a week was too great a rate for his purse, we learn
from the necessity he is under of discarding some of his attendants.
Falstaff was less of a soldier at Windsor than formerly, but
Pistol and Nym keep up their martial dignity, and refuse to
take the 'humour letter.' In the same play, it is remarkable
that he is described as being so poor; and Ford thinks himself
in much better plight for a lender than he is. He addresses his
body, and says, 'Wilt thou, after the expence of so much money,
be now a gainer?' Could he allude to the money he borrowed
from Justice Shallow; and had he been so extravagant, as to be
obliged to share the booty of the fan-handle with Pistol? In the
Falstaff who says, 'Reason, you rogue, reason: Think'st thou I'll
endanger my soul gratis?' may be recognised the Falstaff of the
two parts of Henry the Fourth.
The reader will thus see, that, on the whole, the supposition
of the Merry Wives of Windsor having been supposed to be read
before Henry V., and the second part of Henry IV., involves
fewer inconsistencies than any other. It is true, that, in the
quarto, where Falstaff hears the noise of hunters at Hearne's Oak,
250
THE MEEIIY WIVES OE AVINDSOE.
[iNTEOD.
be exclaims, 'I'll lay my life the mad Prince of Wales is stealing
liis father's deer;' hut, as Mr. Knight ohserves, this may have
reference to the Prince of the Famous Victories, a character
with whom Shakespeare's audience was familiar. In the amended
play, we find Page ohjecting to Fenton, because 'he kept com-
pany with the wild Prince and Poins' (act iii., sc. 2.); but this
refers to his past life, and, therefore, does not necessarily imply
tlijit Henry V. was yet a prince. The character of Mistress
Quickly only is inconsistent with the manner in which the other
p(Msons, common to the Merry Wives and the historical plays,
are introduced. If the Merry Wives is to precede the two parts
of Henry IV., Shakespeare would scarcely have alluded to Poins,
and his intimacy with the Prince, neither of them being intro-
duced into the former play; but, at the same time, as the Merry
Wives was not founded on history, it must be remembered that
the author himself may have adopted what he pleased of name
and character, without much regard to consistency.
It is unnecessary to enter further into the subject, or to aim
at drawing an indefeasible conclusion. Whatever may have
been the reasons that induced the poet to introduce the
characters from his historical plays into a pure Elizabethan
comedy — a circumstance that itself gives some support to the
tradition recorded by Dennis — there cannot be a doubt but that
the most judicious plan for the general reader is to dissociate
the Merry Wives entirely from the two parts of Henry IV., and
from Henry V. It may, indeed, even be a question whether the
ancient costume should with propriety be adopted in modern
representation. The comedy pleases best, when it is regarded
as a picture of Elizabethan manners; and had Shakespeare
himself intended it for a distinct piece connected with the two
parts of Henry IV., it is to be presumed that more numerous
indications of the fifteenth century would be discovered. It is
to be obsers^ed, also, that some of the most important characters
of the ^lerry Wives are surnamed after persons actually resident
at Windsor in Shakespeare's own time, another very curious
circumstance, which corroborates the opinion that it is not, in
reality, to be united with the historical plays. The reader will
find particular account of this last mentioned fact, in the chaj)ter
on the local illustrations of the play, which is given at the end
of the present volume.
Before these introductory observations are concluded, a few
remarks on the character of the foreign physician. Dr. Cains,
I XTROD.]
TEE MERUY WIVES OF WINDSOR.
257
may be introduced, chiefly for the sake of entering into a brief
description of a curious manuscript, connected with the name,
that has only been recently recovered. The commentators aj)-
pear to consider the character of the Doctor as a satire on the
popularity of foreign physicians in England; but there does not
seem to be any real ground for such an opinion. If, indeed, the
poet had intended to make Dr. Caius the representative of a
professional class, he
would, most undoubtedly,
have given a more pro-
minent position to his
character as a doctor.
As it is, the allusions to
his occupation are of
the most trifling and
obvious nature; and are
not, in fact, satirical. A
very curious question,
however, arises out of
the name assigned to
this personage, whether
it were adopted with
some recollection of, if
not with some special
reference to, the illus-
trious founder of Caius
college, Cambridge. The
probability appears to be
that the name was taken
from that individual; but
even, if this be the case,
it is diflficult to believe there
defamation, or any reflections
character.
g bofef, or roim--
scill agiiinst tk Usmt
0mmonlg tiM t\t
stociite, ax stoca-
tjiitg sitknesse.
bottour in pljisicb.
^Tcrn nctESsarn for tncrnc
pcrsonue, :mb mucbc requi-
site to lit bab in tbe banbcs
of al sortes, for tbeir better
instruction, prcpracion anb
befente, against tlje soub-
hnn tomnng, anb fear-
ful assaulting of tije
same biscase.
1552.
^•1
any thought of
ill-natured
and it was
or
is, in truth,
of a personal
The name was one of popular interest,
also introduced into another play, Sharpham's Fleire, 4to.
Lond. 1607, where one of the judges at a trial is termed
Dr. Caius. The Doctor, besides, was known as a medical writer;
and there is no improbability in the supposition that one of his
works had been seen by Shakespeare, and that thence the name,
merely as a name, was taken. There is now before me a little
volume, rarely seen in modern times, but not necessarily a rarity
in the days of Shakespeare, entitled, 'A Boke or Counseill
n. 33
258
THE MEIUIY WIVES OE AVINDSOE.
[iNTHOD.
ajiaiiist the disease commonly eallcd the swcate or sweatyng
sieknossc, made hj Jhoii Calm, doctonr in pkisicke,' 12mo. 1552,
Avhieh contains some cnrions particulars respecting the author,
and his reason for writing in English. He ohserves that he was
horn in Norwich, and that "in phisicke diverse thynges I have
made and sette furtli in print hothe in Greke and Latine, not
mindyng to do otherwise, as I have hefore said, al my life; for
which cause al these thinges I have rehersed, els superfluous in
this place : yet see, meaning now to counseill a litle agaynst the
sweatyng sickenes for lielpe also of others, notwithstandyng my
former purpose, two thynges eompell me, in writynge therof, to
returne agayne to Englishe, necessite of the matter, and good wyl
to my countrie, frendes, and acquaintance, whiche hereto have re-
quired me, to whome I thinke myselfe borne." The name of an
author of a work like this would be known to most educated people
in the reign of Elizabeth ; and there were also other circumstances
that rendered the name of Caius known to the public. "It has
been thought strange," observes Dr. Farmer, "that our author
should take the name of Caius for his Frenchman in this comedy;
but Shakespeare was little acquainted with literary history; and
A\ ithout doubt, from this unusual name, supposed him to have
been a foreign quack: add to this, that the Doctor was handed
down as a kind of Rosicrucian; Mr. Ames had in manuscript one
of the Secret Writings of Dr. Caius."
The volume alluded to by Dr. Farmer has recently been
discovered, having been purchased by myself barely in time to
prevent its being des-
tined to be sold as
'X)v^i9rh^L9k iA)a^f)(ml mon.(^t^ waste. It is of great
IpaktLoh^^ ^Itcnrmliim 9dD(jc^ interest, as affording
OoM.}^: Ttlifi^y^j^wm^ ^C^p Collm some grounds for the
'Vcthn-I^m acmi£hJU^^ld(hvty belief that the name of
^i4^4)e <>pe%^/^ Caius was taken from
(triis%ji^/^^i^'i^^^^^^~^* til at of a person who
appears to have en-
gaged himself in the
study of mystic philosophy, and who nnght therefore have been
considered a fair subject for the use of the dramatist. The manu-
script is in folio, containing twenty-four leaves, the four last of
which are much torn. The earlier portion of it appears to be
wanting. On the first page is the following note in an early hand-
writing:— "This torne booke was found amongst the paper bookes
iNTiioi).] THE MEREY WIVES OE WINDSOR. 259
and secret writings of Doctor Cains, master and founder of Cains
Colledg : Doctor Legg gave it to Mr. Fletcher, fellowe of the
same colledg, and a learned artist for his time." The snhjects
treated of are the characters of good and evil spirits, the
invocation of spirits, the heptameron, magical elements, the
speculum, familiars, the crystal, &;c.; and the reader would be
amused at the extravagance and credulity of the writer or
compiler. Amongst the most curious pieces in the volume may
be selected the following receipt for securing three marvellous
stones : — *'Firste goe unto the place where the swallow hath a
neste with fowre yonge ones, and binde one of them upon the
nest by the space of fower dayes, and the forth day, take him
owt of the neste, and cutt him yn the midste, and yow shall fyiide
three stones yn the belly of divers cullors, the one browne of
cullor, the other, beinge the second, ys redd, the thirde ys white.
Tlie vertew of the firste ys, yf thou wilte give yt to anie
woman wich travileth
with childe, she shalbe
speedity delivered. The
vertew of the red stone
ys, yf thou Avilte put yt A ' J.
yn thy mouth, thow -k ^ T
shalte obteyn anythinge n— i- jry
thow wilte demaunde. 3 I D
y
The vertew of the white ^^~C) ^ ^
stone ys, yf anye man ^ _____ ^ >^
bearetli yt with him,
he shall not be atliirste
as longe as he hath the sayde stone with him." Of such
materials is this manuscript constructed, and it is moreover
illustrated with several diagrams, similar to the one here annexed.
The memory of the writer of such a volume was scarcely
defamed by his being introduced by name into Shakespeare's
comedy; and it is unnecessary to observe there is no particular
individual satire in any way intended in the latter. Observations
on the possible satirical character connected with some of
the other names that are introduced, are given in the local illus-
trations at the end of the notes.
As a specimen of broad domestic comedy, the Merry Wives
of Windsor is unrivalled. It is replete with humour and incident,
and has so little to do with fancy or romance, that the episode
of the fairies in Windsor park creeps into luxuriant poetry.
2G0
THE MERUY WIVES OE WINDSOR.
[iNTROD.
apparently almost in opposition to the writer's will The
comedy nmst he regarded as a realization of the manners and
hahits of Shakespeare's own time, notwithstanding the few
notices which connect it with the historictil plays. Windsor,
and the merry company to whom we are there introduced,
helong to the reign of Queen Bess, and have no connection with
the days of the wild Prince and Pointz. Regarding it in this
view, the play may be considered one of the most successful
delineations of the humour of the age ; of men in the habits in
which they lived and moved, in the poet's own time. A spirit
of fun pervades the whole ; even Ford's jealousy is a subject of
pleasantry; Mrs. Page's invitation makes Falstaff forget his
misfortunes ; and the curtain falls in the midst of merriment
and good temper.
PERSONS REPRESENTED.
Sm John Palstapp.
Fenton, a Courtier.
Egbert Shallow, a Justice of Gloucestershire, Esq.
Slendee, Cousin to Shallow.
Me,. Francis Poed,") „ ^ .
[■ Two Gentlemen dwelling at "Windsor.
Mr. Geoege Page,)
William Page, a Boy, Son to Mr. Page.
Hugh Evans, a "Welch Parson, Curate and School-master near Windsor.
De. Caius, a Prench Physician.
Host of the Garter Inn.
BaEDOLPHj^v
Pistol, > Pollowers of PalstafF.
Nym, )
EoBiN, Page to Palstaff, afterwards in the service of Mrs. Page.
Petee Simple, Servant to Slender.
John Eugbt, Servant to Dr. Caius.
Mrs. Alice Poed.
Mes. Maegeey Page.
Mes. Anne Page, her Daughter, in. love with Penton.
Mes, Quickly, Servant to Dr. Caius.
Servants to Page, Pord, &c.
SCENE, Windsor; and the Parts adjacent.
d tlje Jfirsi
SCENE I. — Windsor. Court or Garden in front of Page s House.
Enter Justice Shallow, Slender, and Sir Hugh Evans.
S/ial. Sir Hugh,^ persuade me not; I will make a Star-
chamber matter of it;^ if he were twenty sir John Falstaffs, he
shall not abuse Robert Shallow, esquire.
Slen. In the county of Gloster, justice of peace, and coram.^
Shal. Ay, cousin Slender, and cust-alorum.
Slen. Ay, and ratolorum too: and a gentleman born, master
parson ; who writes himself armigero; in any bill warrant,
quittance, or obligation,* armigero.
Shal. Ay, that I do ; and have done any time these three
hundred years.^
Slen. AH his successors, gone before him, hath done't; and
all his ancestors, that come after him, may: they may give the
dozen white luces in their coat.
Shal. It is an old coat.
Eva. The dozen white louses do become an old coat'' well ; it
agrees well, passant: it is a familiar beast ^ to man, and
signifies love.
Shal. The luce is the fresh fish; the salt fish is an old coat.^
Slen. I may quarter, coz?
Shal. You may, by marrying.
Eva. It is marring, indeed, if he quarter it ;
Shal. Not a whit.
Eva. Yes, py'r lady; if he has a quarter of your coat there is
261
THE MERUY AYIVES OF AVTNDSOR. [act i. sc. i.
but three skirts for yourself, in my simple conjectures : but that
is all one: If sir John FalstalF have committed disparagements
imto you, I am of the Church, and will be o-lad to do mv
benevolence, to make atonements and compromises between you.
S/ial. The council shall hear it; it is a riot."
Eva. It is not meet the council hear a riot; there is no
fear of Got in a riot: the council, look you, shall desire to hear
the fear of Got, and not to hear a riot; take your vizaments^*^
in that.
S/ial. Ha! o' my life, if I were young again, the sword
should end it.
Eva. It is petter that friends is the sword, and end it: and
there is also another device in my prain, which, peradventure,
prings goot discretions with it: There is Anne Page, which is
daughter to master George Page," which is pretty virginity.
Slen. ^Mistress Anne Page?^" She has brown hair, and speaks
small like a woman.^^
Eva. It is that fery person for all the 'orld, as just as you
will desire ; and seven hundred pounds of moneys, and gold,
and silver, is her grandsire upon his death's-bed (Got deliver to
a joyful resurrections!) give, when she is able to overtake seven-
teen years old : it were a goot motion if we leave our pribbles
and prabbles,^^ and desire a marriage between master xibraham
and mistress Anne Page.
Shal. Did her grandsire leave her seven hundred pound
Eva. Ay, and her father is make her a petter penny.
Shal. I know the young gentlewoman ; she has good gifts.
Eva. Seven hundred pounds, and possibilities,^' is goot gifts.
S/ial. Well, let us see honest master Page : is Falstaff there?
Eva. Shall I tell you a lie ? I do despise a liar as I do despise
one that is false ; or as I despise one that is not true. The
knight, sir John, is there ; and, I beseech you, be ruled by your
well-willers. I will peat the door [knocks] for master Page.
What, boa! Got pless your house here!
Pa(/e [IJ^ithbi]. Who's there?
Eva. Here is Got's plessing and your friend, and justice
Shallow : and here young master Slender ; that, peradventures,
shall tell you another tale, if matters grow to your likings.
Enter Page.
Pafje. I am glad to see your worships well : I thank you for
my venison, master Shallow.
ACT I. SC. I.] THE MEEEY WIVES OE WINDSOR.
265
Shal. Master Page, I am glad to see you; Much good do it
your good heart! I wished your venison better; it was ill killed:
— How doth good mistress Page? — and I thank you always with
my heart, la; with my heart.
Page. Sir, I thank you.
Shctl. Sir, I thank you ; by yea and no, I do.
Page. I am glad to see you, good master Slender.
Slen. How does your fallow greyhound, sir ? I heard say he
was outrun on Cotsall.^^
Page. It could not be judged, sir.
Slen. You '11 not confess, you '11 not confess.
Shal. That he will not : — 't is your fault,^° 't is your fault : —
'Tis a good dog.
Page. A cur, sir.
Shal. Sir, he 's a good dog, and a fair dog ; Can there be
more said? he is good, and fair. Is sir John Falstaff here?
Page. Sir, he is within; and I would I could do a good office
between you.
Eva. It is spoke as a Christians ought to speak.
Shal. He hath wronged me, master Page.
Page. Sir, he doth in some sort confess it.
Shal. If it be confessed it is not redressed ; is not that so,
master Page? He hath wronged me ; indeed, he hath ; — at
a word, he hath ; — believe me ; Robert Shallow, esquire, saith
he is wronged.
Page. Here comes sir John.
Enter Sir John Falstaff, Bardolph, Nym, and Pistol,
Fal. Now, master Shallow ; you '11 complain of me to
the king?
Shal. Knight, you have beaten my men, killed my deer, and
broke open my lodge.
Fal. But not kissed your keeper's daughter.
Shal. Tut, a pin! this shall be answered.
Fal. I will answer it straight ; — I have done all this ; — That
is now answered.
Shal. The council shall know this.
Fal. 'T were better for you if it were known in counsel;'^
you '11 be laughed at.
Eva. Pauca verba, sir John, good worts.
Fal. Good worts! good cabbage."^ — Slender, I broke your
head ; What matter have you against me?
2GG
THE MEEllY WIVES OE WINDSOR. [act i. sc. i.
Shu. INIarry, sir, I have matter in my head ai>;aiiist you ; and
ajjainst your coney-catehing rascals, Bardolph, Nyni, and PistoL
They carried me to the tavern, and made me drunk,"^ and after-
wards ])icked my pocket.
B(fr(i. You Banbury cheese!'^
Slen. Ay, it is no matter.
Pist. II ow now, ^lephostophilus?'"
Slen. Ay, it is no matter.
Ni/m. Shee, I say! pauca, pauca; sUce! that's my humour.'^
Slen. Where 's Simple, my man? — can you tell, cousin?
Eva. Peace : I pray you! Now, let us understand : There
is three umpires in this matter, as I understand : that is —
master Va^e, Jidellcety master Page; and there is mjseli, Jidelicet,
myself ; and the three party is, lastly and finally, mine host
of the Garter.
Pct(/e. We three, to hear it and end it between them.
Eva. Fery goot; I will make a prief of it in my note-book;
and we will afterwards 'ork upon the cause, with as great
discreetly as we can.
Fal. Pistol—
Pist. He hears with ears."^
Eva. The tevil and his tarn! what phrase is this, "He hears
with ear?" Why, it is affectations.
Fal. Pistol, did you pick master Slender's purse?
Slen. Ay, by these gloves, did he, (or I would I might never
come in mine own great chamber again else,) of seven groats
in mill-sixpences,"'' and two Edward shovel-boards,^*^ that cost
me two shilling and two pence a-piece of Yead Miller, by these
gloves.
Fal. Is this true. Pistol ?
Eva. No ; it is false, if it is a pick-purse.
Pist. Ha, thou mountain foreigner ! — Sir John and master mine,
I combat challenge of this latten bilbo
W^ord of denial in thy labras^^ here ;
Word of denial : froth and scum, thou liest!
Slen. By these gloves, then 't was he.
Ni/m. Be avised, sir, and pass good humours ; I will say
'marry trap'^^ with you, if you run the nuthook's humour^* on
me : that is the very note of it.
Slen. By this hat, then, he in the red face had it: for though
I cannot remember what I did when you made me drunk, yet I
am not altogether an ass.
ACT I. SC. I.] THE MEREY WIYES OE AVINDSOE.
267
Fal. What say you, Scarlet and John?^^
Bard. Why, sir, for my part, I say the gentleman had drunk
himself out of his five sentences.
Eva. It is his five senses : fie, what the ignorance is !
Bard. And heing fap,^*' sir, was, as they say, cashiered; and so
conclusions passed the careers.^^
Slen. Ay, you spake in Latin then too ; but 't is no matter :
I '11 ne'er be drunk whilst I live again, but in honest, civil,
godly company, for this trick : if I be drunk, I '11 be drunk
with those that have the fear of God, and not with drunken
knaves.
Eva. So Got 'udge me, that is a virtuous mind.
Fal. You hear all these matters denied, gentlemen; you
hear it.
Enter Mistress Anne Page, ivith wine; Mistress Ford and
Mistress Page followmg.
Page. Nay, daughter, carry the wine in; we'll drink within.
[Exit Anne Page.
Slen. O Heaven! this is mistress Anne Page.
Page. How now, mistress Ford ?
Fal. Mistress Ford, by my troth, you are very well met : by
your leave, good mistress.^^ [Kisses her.
Page. Wife, bid these gentlemen welcome: Come, we have a
hot venison pasty to dinner; come, gentlemen, I hope we shall
drink down all unkindness.
[Exeunt all hut Shallow, Slender, and Evans.
Slen. I had rather than forty shillings, I had my book of
Songs and Sonnets^® here: —
Enter Simple.
How now. Simple! Where have you been? I must wait on my-
self, must I ? You have not the Book of Riddles*" about you,
have you?
Sim. Book of Riddles? Wliy, did you not lend it to Alice
Shortcake upon Allhallowmas last,*' a fortnight afore INIi-
chaelmas?
Shal. Come, coz; come, coz; we stay for you. A word with
you, coz: marry, this, coz; There is, as 't were, a tender, a
kind of tender, made afar off by sir Hugh here: — Do you
understand me?
2GS
THE MEREY WIVES OE WINDSOR. [act i. sc. t.
SIcif. Ay, sir, you shall find mc reasonable; if it be so, I shall
do that that is reason.
S/ial. Nay, but understand me.
Sloii. So I do, sir.
Em. Give ear to his motions, master Slender: I will deserip-
tion the matter to you, if you be capacity of it.
Slcn. Nay, I will do as my cousin Shallow says: I pray you,
pardon me; he's a justice of peace in his country, simple
though I stand here.^"
Em. But that is not the question; the question is concerning
your marriage.
S/ial. Ay, there 's the point, sir.
Eva. Marry, is it; the very point of it; to mistress Anne
Page.
Slen. Why, if it be so, I will marry her, upon any reasonable
demands.
Eva. But can you affection the 'oman? Let us command to
know that of your mouth, or of your lips; for divers philosophers
hold that the lips is parcer^^ of the mouth : — Therefore, precisely,
can you carry your good will to the maid?
Shal. Cousin Abraham Slender, can you love her?
Slen. I hope, sir, I will do, as it shall become one that
would do reason.
Eva. Nay, Got's lords and his ladies ! you must speak possi-
table, if you can carry her your desires towards her.
Shal. That you must; Will you, upon good dowry, marry
her?
Sleti. I will do a greater thing than that, upon your request,
cousin, in any reason.
Shal. Nay, conceive me, conceive me, sweet coz; what I do
is to pleasure you, coz: Can you love the maid?
Slen. I will marry her, sir, at your request; but if there be no
great love in the beginning, yet Heaven may decrease it upon
better acquaintance, when we are married and have more
occasion to know one another: I hope, upon familiarity will
grow more content ;^^ but if you say, "marry her," I will marry
her, — that I am freely dissolved, and dissolutely.^'
Eva. It is a fery discretion answer ; save, the fall' is in the
'ort dissolutely: the 'ort is, according to our meaning, reso-
lutely;— his meaning is good.
Shal. Ay, I think my cousin meant well.
Slen. Ay, or else I would I might be hanged, la.
ACTi. sc. I.] THE MEEEY WIVES OE WINDSOR.
269
Re-enter Anne Page.
Shal. Here comes fair mistress Anne: — Would I were young
for your sake, mistress Anne !
Anne. The dinner is on the table ; my father desires your
worship's company.
Shal. I will wait on him, fair mistress Anne.
Eva. 'Od's plessed will ; I will not he absence at the grace.
[Exeunt Shallow and Sir II. Evans.
Anne. Will 't please your worship to come in, sir?
Slen. No, I thank you, forsooth, heartily; I am very well.
Anne. The dinner attends you, sir.
Slen. I am not a-hungry, I thank you, forsooth. Go, sirrah,
for all you are my man,*'' go, wait upon my cousin Shallow:
[Exit Simple.] A justice of peace sometime may be beholden
to his friend for a man: — I keep but three men and a boy yet,
till my mother be dead : But what though? yet I live like a
poor gentleman born.
Anne. I may not go in without your worship : they will not
sit till you come.
Slen. V faith, I 11 eat nothing ; I thank you as much as
though I did.
Anne. I pray you, sir, walli in.
Slen. I had rather walk here, I thank you ; I bruised my shin
the other day with playing at sword and dagger'' with a master
of fence,*^ three veneys*^ for a dish of stewed prunes ; and, by
my troth, I cannot abide the smell of hot meat since. Why do
your dogs bark so? be there bears i' the town ?
Anne. I think there are, sir; I heard them talked of.
Slen. I love the sport well ; but I shall as soon quarrel at it,
as any man in England : — You are afraid, if you see the bear
loose, are you not?
Anne. Ay, indeed, sir.
Slen. That 's meat and drink to me now: I have seen Sac-
kerson^° loose twenty times ; and have taken him by the chain:
but, I warrant you, the women have so cried and shrieked at it,
that it passed :^^ — but women, indeed, cannot abide 'em ; they
are very ill-favoured rough things.
Re-enter Page.
Page. Come, gentle master Slender, come ; we stay for you.
Slen. I '11 eat nothing, I thank you, sir.
270
TnE MERRY WIVES OE WINDSOR, [act i. sc. iii.
Page. By cock and pye, you shall not choose, sir : come,
come.
Slen. Nay, pray you, lead the way.
Page. Come on, sir.
Slen. IVIistress Anne, yourself shall go first.
Anne. Not I, sir; pray you, keep on.
Slen. Truly, I will not go first ; truly, la: I will not do you
that wrong.
Anne. I pray you, sir.
Slen. I 'II rather be unmannerly than troublesome; you do
yourself wrong, indeed, la. [Exeunt.
SCENE ll.-^The Lobby in Pages House.
Enter Sir Hugh Evans and Simple.
Eva. Go your ways, and ask of Doctor Caius' house which
is the way: and there dwells one mistress Quickly, which is in
the manner of his nurse, or his try nurse, or his cook, or his
laundry,^^ his washer, and his wringer.^^
Sim. Well, sir.
Eva. Nay, it is petter yet: give her this letter; for it is a'oman
that altogether 's acquaintance^* with mistress Anne Page: and
the letter is, to desire and require her to solicit your master's
desires to mistress Anne Page: I pray you, be gone; I will make
an end of my dinner; there's pippins and cheese to come."
[Eoceunt.
SCENE III. — A Room in the Garter Inn.
Enter Falstaff, Host, Bardolph, Nym, Pistol, and Robin.
Fal. Mine host of the Garter, —
Host. What says my bully-rook P'*' Speak scholarly and wisely.
Fal. Truly, mine host, I must turn away some of my fol-
lowers.
Host. Discard, bully Hercules; cashier: let them wag; trot,
trot.
Fal. I sit at ten pounds a week.^^
Host. Thou 'rt an emperor, Caesar, Reiser, and Pheazar ! I
win entertain Bardolph; he shall draw, he shall tap: said I well,
bully Hector?^^
ACT I. SC. m.] THE MEERY WIVES OE WINDSOR.
271
Fal. Do so, good mine host.
Host. I have spoke; let hini follow: Let me see thee froth,'"
and live: I am at a word; follow. [Exit Host.
Fal. Bardolpli, follow him: a tapster is a good trade: an old
cloak makes a new jerkin; a withered servingman, a fresh tapster:''^
Go; adieu.
Bard. It is a life that I have desired; I will thrive. [Exit Baud.
Fist. O base Hmigarian wight I''^ wilt thou the spigot wield?
Nym, He was gotten in drink: Is not the humour conceited?
His mind is not heroic,*^^ and there's the humour of it.
Fal. I am glad I am so acquit of this tinder-box;^* his thefts
were too open; his filching was like an unskilful singer, — he
kept not time.
Nym. The good humour is to steal at a minute's rest.""
Fist. Convey/'' the wise it call : Steal ! fob ; a fico for the
phrase I*^^
Fal. Well, sirs, I am almost out at heels.
Fist. Why, then, let kibes ensue.
Fal. There is no remedy; I must coney-catch ; I must shift.
Fist. Young ravens must have food!™
Fal. Which of you know Ford of this town?
Fist. I ken the wight; he is of substance good.
Fal. My honest lads, I will tell you what I am about.
Fist. Two yards, and more.
Fal. No quips now, Pistol : Indeed I am in the waist two
yards about; but I am now about no waste ;^^ I am about tlu'ift.
Briefly, I do mean to make love to Ford's wife; I spy entertain-
ment in her;^^ she discourses, she carves,^^ she gives the leer of
invitation : I can construe the action of her familiar style ; and
the hardest voice of her behaviour, to be Englished rightly, is, I
am sir John Falstaff s.
Fist. He hath studied her wiU,^* and translated her will, out
of honesty into English.
Nym. The anchor is deep:^^ Will that humour pass?
Fal. Now, the report goes she has all the rule of her husband's
purse; he hath a legion of angels.
Fist. As many devils entertain;^'' and, 'To her, boy,' say I.
Nym. The humour rises; it is good : humour me the angels.'^
Fal. I have writ me here a letter to her : and here another to
Page's wife ; who even now gave me good eyes too ;^^ examined
my parts with most judicious eyelids;" sometimes the beam of
her view gilded*^° my foot, sometimes my portly belly.
THE MEEEY WIVES OE WINDSOR, [act i. sc. hi.
PIsf. Then (lid the sun on dunghill shine.^^
Ni/m. I thank thee for that humour.^^
Fal. O, she did so course o'er my exteriors with such a
greedy intention/^ that the appetite of her eye did seem to
scorch me up like a hurning-glass ! Here 's another letter to her :
she bears the purse too ; she is a region in Guiana/* all gold and
bounty. I will be cheater to them both, and they sliaU be
exchequers to me ; they shall be my East and West Indies, and
I will trade to them both. Go, bear thou this letter to mistress
Page ; and thou this to mistress Ford : we wiU thrive, lads, we
will thrive.
Pist. Shall I sir Pandarus of Troy^^ become,
And by my side wear steel ? then, Lucifer take all !
Ni/m. 1 will run no base humour: here, take the humour-
letter ; I Avill keep the 'haviour of reputation.
Fal. Hold, sirrah [to Rob.], bear you these letters tightly;^''
Sail like my pinnace to these golden shores.^^ —
Rogues, hence, avaunt I vanish like hailstones, go ;
Trudge, plod, away, i' the hoof seek shelter, pack !
Falstaff will learn the humour of the age,^^
French thrift,^° you rogues ; myself, and skirted page.
[Exeunt Falstaff and Robin.
Pist. Let vultures gripe thy guts!^^ for gourd and fullam
hold,^^
And high and low beguile the rich and poor;
Tester I '11 have in pouch, when thou shalt lack,
Base Phrygian Turk!
Nym. I have operations, which be humours of revenge.
Pist. Wilt thou reveno;e?
Nym. By welkin, and her star !
Pist. With wit, or steel ?
Nym. With both the humours, I:
I will discuss the humour of this love to Pao:e.°^
Pist. And I to Ford shall eke unfold.
How Falstaff, varlet vile.
His dove will prove, his gold will hold,
And his soft couch defile.
Nym. My humour shall not cool : I will incense''* Page to
deal with poison ; I will possess him with yellowness,''^ for the
revolt of mien'"' is dangerous : that is my true humour.
Pist. Thou art the Mars of malcontents ! I second thee ; troop
on. [Exeunt .
ACT I. SC. IV.] THE MEREY WIVES OE WINDSOR.
273
SCENE IV.— ^ Room in Dr. Caius's House.
Enter Mrs. Quickly, Simple, and Rugby.
Quick. What: John Rugby! — I pray thee, go to the case-
ment, and see if you can see my master, master Doctor Caius,
coming : if he do, i' faith, and find anybody in the house, here
will be an old abusing^^ of God's patience, and the king's
English.
Rug. I '11 go watch. [Exit Rugby.
Quick Go ; and we '11 have a posset for 't soon at night, in
faith, at the latter end of a sea-coal fire. An honest, willing,
kind fellow, as ever servant shall come in house withal ; and, I
warrant you, no tell-tale, nor no breed-bate his worst fault is,
that he is given to prayer ; he is something peevish that way -^^
but nobody but has his fault ; — but let that pass. Peter Simple
you say your name is ?
Sim. Ay, for fault of a better. ^^'^
Quick. And master Slender 's your master ?
Sim. Ay, forsooth.
Quick. Does he not wear a great round beard,^°^ like a glover's
paring-knife?^°^
Sim. No, forsooth : he hath but a little wee face,^°^ with a
little yellow beard; a Cain-coloured beard.
Quick. A softly-sprighted man, is he not?
Sim. Ay, forsooth: but he is as tall a man^°^ of his hands, as
any is between this and his head; he hath fought with a war-
rener.
Quick. How say you? — O, I should remember him: Does he
not hold up his head, as it were? and strut in his gait?
Sim. Yes, indeed, does he.
Quick. Well, Heaven send Anne Page no worse fortune! Tell
master parson Evans I will do what I can for your master: Anne
is a good girl, and I wish —
Re-enter Rugby.
Ruff. Out, alas! here comes my master.
Quick. We shall all be shent! Run in here, good young man:
go into this closet. [Shuts Simple in the closet.] He will not
stay long. — What, John Rugby! John, what, John, I say! Go,
John, go inquire for my master; I doubt he be not well, that he
comes not home: — And down, down, adown-a, ^c.^"*^ [Sings.
n. 35
THE MEEllY WIVES OE WINDSOR. [act i. sc. iv.
Enter Doctor Caius/*^^
Cains. Vat is you sing? I do not like dcse toys; Pray you, go
and vetch nic in niy closet mi hoitler verd,^^^ — a box, a green-a
box. Do intend vat I speak? a green-a-box.
Quick. Ay, forsooth, I '11 fetch it you. I am glad he went
not in himself: if he had found the young man, he would have
been horn-mad. \ylside.
Cains. Foj Je, /e,Je! ma Jbi, il fait fort cliaiid. Je men vais a
la cour, — la grand affaire.
Qtiick. Is it this, sir?
Cains. Ouy; mette le aii mon pocket; Depeche,^'^^ quickly: — Vere
is dat knave Rugby?
Qtiick. What, John Rugby! John!
Rug. Here, sir.
Caius. You are John Rugby, and you are Jack Rogoby:"" Come,
take-a your rapier,"^ and come after my heel to the court.
Rug. 'T is ready, sir, here in the porch.
Caius. By my trot, I tarry too long; — Od's me! Quay jouhlie?
dere is some simples in my closet, dat I vill not for the varld I
shall leave behind.
Quick. Ah me! he '11 find the young man there, and be mad!
Caius. 0 diable, diable! vat is in my closet? — Villainy! larronl
[Pulling Simple out.~\ Rugby, my rapier.
Quick. Good master, be content.
Caius. Verefore shall I be content-a?
Quick. The young man is an honest man.
Cains. Vat shall de honest man do in my closet? dere is no
honest man dat shall come in my closet.
Quick. I beseech you, be not so phlegmatic; hear the truth of
it: He came of an errand to me from parson Hugh.
Caius. Veil.
Sim. Ay, forsooth, to desire her to —
Quick. Peace, I pray you.
Caius. Peace-a your tongue: — Speak-a your tale.
Sim. To desire this honest gentlcAvoman, your maid, to speak
a good word to Mistress Anne Page for my master, in the way
of marria2:e.
Quick. This is all, indeed, la;"^ but I '11 ne'er put my finger
in the fire, and need not.^^^
Caius. Sir Hugh send-a you? — Rugby, baillez me some paper:"^
Tarry you a little-a while. [Writes.
ACT I. SC. IV.] THE MEEEY WIVES OE WINDSOR.
275
Quick. I am glad he is so quiet: if he had heen thoroughly
moved, you should have heard him so loud, and so melancholy. —
But notwithstanding, man, 1 '11 do for your master what good I
can:^^° and the very yea and the no is, the French doctor, my
master, — I may caU him my master, look you, for I keep his
house; and I wash, wring, brew, bake, scour, dress meat and
drink,^^^ make the beds, and do all myself :
Sim. 'T is a great charge to come under one body's hand.
Quick. Are you avised o' that?^^^ you shall find it a great charge :
and to be up early and down late; but notwithstanding, (to tell
you in your ear; I would have no words of it;) my master him-
self is in love with mistress Anne Page: but notwithstanding that,
I know Anne's mind, — that's neither here nor there.
Caius. You jack'nape; give-a dis letter to sir Hugh; by gar, it
is a shaUenge; I vill cut his troat in de park; and I vill teach a
scurvy jack-a-nape priest to meddle or make: — you maybe gone;
it is not good you tarry here: — by gar, I vill cut all his two
stones; by gar, he shall not have a stone to trow at his dog.
[Exit Simple.
Quick. Alas, he speaks but for his friend.
Caius. It is no matter-a ver dat: do not you tell-a me dat I
shall have Anne Page for myself? by gar, I viU kill de Jack
priest; and I have appointed mine Host of de Jarteer to measure
our weapon: by gar, I vill myself have Anne Page.
Quick. Sir, the maid loves you, and all shall be well : we must
give folks leave to prate: What, the good-jer!
Caius. Rugby, come to the court with me : — By gar, if I have
not Anne Page, I shall turn your head out of my door: — Follow
my heels, Rugby. [Exeunt Caius and Rugby.
Quick. You shall have An fool's-head of your own.^^'' No, I
know Anne's mind for that: never a Avoman in Windsor know^s
more of Anne's mind than I do : nor can do more than I do w itli
her, I thank Heaven.
Fent. [Tf^itJiin.'] Who's within there? ho!
Quick. Who 's there, I trow? Come near the house, I pray
you.
Enter Fenton.
Fent. How now, good woman; how dost thou?
Quick. The better that it pleases your good worship to ask.
Fent. What news? how does pretty mistress Anne?
Quick. In truth, sir, and she is pretty, and honest, and gentle;
27G
THE MEllRY WIVES OF WINDSOR. [act i. sc. iv.
and one that is your friend, I can tell you that hy the way; I
praise Heaven for it.
Font. Shall I do any good, think'st thou? Shall I not lose my
suit?
Quick. Troth, sir, all is in His hands ahove: hut notwith-
standing, master Fenton, I '11 he sworn on a hook, she loves you:
— Have not your worship a wart ahove your eye?
Fent. Yes, marry, have I; what of that?
Quick. Well, tlierehy hangs a tale; — good faith, it is such
another Nan; — ^hut, I detest, an honest maid as ever hroke
hread;^'" — We had an hour's talk of that wart:^^^ — I shall never
laugh hut in that maid's company I But, indeed, she is given too
much to allichoUy^" and musing: But for you — Well, go to.
Fent. Well, I shall see her to-day; Hold, there 's money for
thee; let me have thy voice in my behalf: if thou seest her he-
fore me, commend me.
Quick. Will I? i' faith, that I will; and I will tell your wor-
ship more of the wart, the next time we have confidence;
and of other wooers.
Fent. Well, farewell; I am in great haste now. \_Ficit.
Quick. Farewell to your worship. — Trvily, an honest gentle-
man; hut Anne loves him not; for I know Anne's mind as well
as another does: — Out upon't! what have I forgot ?^'^ \_Exit.
Italics to tijt Jfirst %d.
^ Sir Hugli, persuade me not.
The title of sir, applied to a clergyman, answered to the Latin dominus. See
further observations on the subject in the notes to Twelfth Night. "1574,
August xxxi, Sir John Evans, curate of Cheltenham, buried," Register of Burials
of the Parish of Cheltenham.
^ / will make a Star Chamber matter of it.
Among the unpublished papers in the Talbot collection is a letter from the
Earl of Derby, dated 1589-90, relating to a deer-stealer in Staffordshire, whom he
binds over to appear before Lord Shrewsbury, "and at the nexte terme (God
willinge) I will call hym into the Starre Chamber to answeere his misdemenors."
In the same MSS. is a letter from the Archbishop of York, 1556-7, relating to
"divers evill disposed personnes who entred into the same parke by night season
with grehoundes and bowes entending to destroy our deare." The Star-Chamber
had a rio-ht to take cognizance of all such matters. See Ben Jonson's Mao-netic
Lady. The following note on the subject is extracted from an article in a
magazine (now defunct), published some years ago: —
"Justice Shallow, in both instances, alludes to the Court of the Lords of the
Council, better known as the Star Chamber, from the circumstance of its sittings
having been held in Camera Stellata. The jurisdiction exercised by this Court was a
species of extraordinary judicature — applicable to cases not within the reach of the
law, or where it became doubtful whether the offence came within the letter of
the statute law. It is to a doubt of this nature, as to what was a riot, that
Shallow plausibly refers his grievance to the Star Chamber; for it was not every
tumultuous or disorderly act committed by many, that came within the statutes
concerning riots. Lambard, the lawyer and antiquary, in his Eirenarclia (ed.
1588, p. 190, a book often reprinted and much in use when Shakespeare wrote),
after stating what acts of violence did not amount to a riot, gives an instance of a
riotous act committed by women, — whose acts, generally, were not deemed riotous,
even when committed in concert, and violent and tumultuous, — being punished in
the Star Chamber. The process and punishment of this Court, also, was of a
summary character, and more prompt than the courts of law; and as the Court was
of the highest authority, the greatest personages sitting in judgment. Shallow's
vanity and anger are very apparent from his desire that his particular grievance
27S
NOTES TO THE EIllST ACT.
sliould be cognizable in a court of that description, whilst his angry motives are
veiled under the uncertain descrii)tion of the olFcncc. Shakespeare, perhaps,
might have desired that the Court itself, which was getting odious from its almost
exclusive dealing with political oilences, should also be brought into contempt
bv its being associated with Slmllow's trumpery grievance^ (T. E. T.)
^ Justice of Peace, and Comm.
There is a succession of blunders, the real designation of Shallow being,
"Justice of the Peace tind of the Quorum, and Custos Jlotulorum," To belong to
the Quorum was, of course, considered a distinction. " The latter clause of the
connnission compreliendeth the power given to these justices, as wel for to enquire
of al those offences that be contained therein, as to proceede, heare, and determine
thereof upon any former or future enditements ; so alwayes that two of these
justices at least be present thereat, and so that the one of these two bee of
that select number which is commonly termed of the Quorum," Lambard's
Eirenarcha, 1G07. The same authority informs ns that, "amongst the officers (at
the sessions) the Custos Hotulorum hath worthily the first place, both for that he
is alwaies a Justice of the Quorum in the Commission, and amongst them of the
Quorum a man (for the most part) especially picked out either for wisedome,
countenance, or credite." The corruption of coram for quorum is frequently met
with. "And of the collections of the scatterings, a justice of peace and coram,"
Pierce Penilesse, 1592. "A pretty maintenance to keep a justice of peace and
coram top^" Muses Looking-glasse, 161*3. The same form is met with on monu-
ments. , "Edward Bainard esquire, who, for the space of many years, even to his
dying day, was justice of the peace and corum, and sometimes custos rotulorum,
and high-sheriff of the county of "Wilts," monument, 1575} ap. Hunter, i. 213.
" Here also resteth in peace the body of Sir Eerdinando Heyborne Knight, justice
of peace and coram in the county of Middlesex," monument, dated 1619, at
Tottenham. Coram, for quorum, was sometimes confused with coram nobis,
justices of the peace being authorized to summon people before them.
Anthony, sir ; and I vow to ye, Mr, Docket, it was great pitty it was not Sir
Anthony: for though he w^as but a Justice of Peace and Coram, so that he could
a brought rogues coram nobis at any time, yet he might a been a knight, and a
good one, both for his estate and wit. — The Woman turn d Bully, 1675.
Masse, I thinke he be some justice of peace of ad quorum, and omnium popu-
lorum, how he samines me. — The First Part of the Tragicall Baigne of Selimus,
1594
* Bill, warrant, quittance, or obligation.
Bills and obligations were bonds, the former sometimes without, the latter
generally Avith, penalties and conditions ; but they were both deeds, requiring to be
signed, sealed, and delivered. According to West's Simboleography, 1605, ['abiU
or obligation (which be all one, saving that, when it is in English, it is commonly
called a bill, and when it is in Latin, an obligation) is in a deed whereby the obligor
doth knowledge liimselfe to owe unto the obligee a certaine summe of money or
other thing ; in which, besides the parties' names, are to be considered the summe
or thing due, and the time, place, and manner of payment or deliverie thereof :
obligations be either by matter in deed or of record : an obligation by matter in
deed is every obligation which is not knowledged and made in some court of
record." Slender had probably seen an obligation to Shallow commencing, —
"Xoverint universi per prsesentes me J. L, teneri et firmiter obligari Roberto
Shallow armigero," and thinking the last word was part and parcel of his desig-
nation, even in the dative case ; or he may be referring to Shallow's attestations
as justice of the peace, — "juratus coram me Eoberto Shallow armigero."]
NOTES TO THE EIEST ACT.
279
In matters great, to will it doth suffice :
I blush to hear how loud this proverb lyes,
Eor they that ow great sums by bond or hill.
Can never cancell them with meer good will.
JFitts Recreations, 1654.
"Acceptilacio, a quittance of an obligacion made by mouthe, whan the dettour
demandeth of the creditour, whether he be content of that whiche he hath
promised him : and the creditour answereth, yea, as though he sayd, I do accept it
as if it were payed," — Eliotes Dictionarie, ed. Cooper, 1559. There is the form of
"a quitance for the redemption of landes before solde condicionally" in the Booke
of Instrumentes, 1576, f. 151.
^ Any time these three hundred years.
Mr. Knight thinks we are to understand Shallow as saying, idg (I and my
ancestors) have done so anytime these three hundred years. Is it certain that
Shakespeare did not intend to raise a laugh at Shallow's expense, by representing
him as saying this literally in his anxiety to boast of his ancestry? Eishop
Montagu mentions a person who, in giving evidence on a question of tythes, swore,
in the bishop's hearing, that he had known the place tytlieable for three hundred
years! The three hundred years mentioned by Shallow, according to another
authority, (^efer to the antiquity of the Lucy family, whose pedigree is deduced by
Dugdale from the reign of Richard I., about four hundred years before the play
was written ; but the family did not take the name of Lucy until the 34th of
Henry IIL, which exactly corresponds with the period above stated^
The dozen white louses do become an old coat well.
So, says Steevens, in the Penniless Parliament of thread-bare Poets, 1608 :
" But amongst all other decrees and statutes by us here set downe, wee ordaine
and commaund that three thinges (if they be not parted) ever to continue in
perpetuall amitie, that is, a louse in an olde doublet, a painted cloth in a painter's
shop, and a foole and his bable." I cannot discover this passage in the copy of
the tract to which I have referred, but, as there was more than one edition of it,
the extract above given may still be correct.
^ It is a familiar beast to man, and sigiiijies — love.
Upon a time a servant of the fornamed kinges, seyrige a louce crepe upon the
kynges robe, kneled downe, and put up his hande, as though he wolde do soni-
what, and as the kynge bowed hym selfe a lyttell, the man toke the louce, and
conveyed her away prively. The kynge asked hym what it was, but he was
ashamed to shew. So moche the kyng instanted hym, that at laste he confessed
hit was a louce. Oh, quod the kynge, it is good luche; for this declareth me to
be a man : for that kynde of vermyne principally greveth mankynde : specially in
youth. And so the kynge commanded to gyve him fyfty crownes for his labour.—
Tales and Quiche Answeres, n. d.^
"This little animal," observes Boswell, "which Sir Hugh speaks of so kindly,
is thus complimented, I suppose, for its fidelity to man ; as it does not desert him
in distress, but rather sticks more close to him in his adversity. In a Latin
tragedy on the subject of Nero by Dr. Matthew Gwinne, 16-39, the tyrant
exclaims, when deserted by his courtiers :
" 0 aulicorum perfidum ingratum genus,
Nec ut pediculus in crucem domino comesT
A plaine countrey vicar perswaded his parishioners in all their troubles and
280
NOTES TO THE EIllST ACT.
adversities to call upon God, and thus hce said : There is, dearlic beloved, a
certaine familiar beast amongst you called a hogge ; see you not how toward a
storme or a tempest it crieth evermore, ourg-h, ourgh ? So must you likewise, in all
your eminent troubles and dangers, say to yourselves, Lourghd, Lourghd, helpe me. —
Copley's Wits, Fits, and Faucies, 10 14.
® The salt fish is an old coat.
The old MS. of this play reads salt-icater fish, a curious variation, though of
no authority. ' A quartering- of the Lucy arms, exhibiting- the " dozen white luces,"
is given in Dugdale's Warwickshire, 1056, p. 348, annexed to a representation of
an early monument to the memory of Thomas, son of
Sir William Lucyj and regarding the present drama
as Elizabethan, it is curious to observe how nearly
Slender 's three centuries is borne out by!Dugdale,
who says, of one William Lucy, that he "was a knight
in 2 Edward II., if not sooner, and bore for his arms
Gules seme of Crosslets with three Lucies hauriant
d' Argent, as by his seal appears,^ ibid. p. 397. In
the first coat above mentioned, (there are quartered
three fishes in each of four several divisions, making
exactly the twelve luces, curiously illustrative not only
of Slender's observation on that number, but of his
subsequent speech, " 1 may quarter." The specimen
of the three luces, here engraved, forms one of the
fanciful ornamented vanes still preserved on the old
mansion of Charlecotej here taken from Moule. With
respect to the very difficult passage in the text, it
appears to me that nothing in any way satisfactory has yet been written upon it ;
and I can do little more than transcribe the notes of some of the commentators,
adding a few notices from Holme's Academy of Armory. If Shallow intended to
be jocular, which I think is altogether improbable, he might ('possibly allude to
some joke such as that of Cob's in Every Man in His Humour, 1598, who derived
his pedigree from " the first red herring that was broiled in Adam and Eve's
kitchen ;7 or it is barely possible that the whole scene may be intended to ridicule
the learning of heraldry, and that Shallow's observation is purposely unintelligible.
"Shakespeare seems to frolick here in his heraldry, with a design not to be
easily understood. In Leland's Collectanea, vol. I. p. ii. p. 015, the arms of
Geffrey de Liicy are, de goules poudre a croisil dor a treis luz dor. Can the poet
mean to quibble upon the word poudre, that is, pow-
dered, which signifies salted; or strewed and sprinkled
with any thing? In Measm-e for Measure, Lucio
says — Ever your fresh whore and jom poivder''d\)2c^^^''
— Toilet. In Eerne's Blazon of Gentry, (see also
p. 282), the arms of the Lucy family are represented
as an instance, that " signs of the coat should some-
thing agree with the name. It is the coat of GefFray
Lord Lucy. He did bear gules, three lucies hariant.
The above engraving- is taken from a seal in my own possession,
annexed to a deed of the Lucy family. " Shakespeare," says Smith, a writer
in the old variorum, " by hinting that the arms of the Shallows and the Lucys
were the same, shews he could not forget his old friend sir Thomas Lucy, pointing
at him under the character of justice Shallow. But to put the matter out of all
doubt, Shakespeare has here given us a distinguishing mark, whereby it appears
argent
NOTES TO THE riRST ACT.
281
that sir Thomas was the very person represented by Shallow. To set blundering
parson Evans right, Shallow tells him, the luce is not the louse, but the/mA fish,
or pike ; the salt fish (indeed) is an old coat. The plain English of which is, if I
am not greatly mistaken, the family of the Charlcotts had for their arms a salt
jisli originally; but when William, son of Walker de Charlcott, assumed the
name of Lucy, in the time of Henry III,, he took the arms of the Lucys. This is
not at all improbable; for we find, when Maud Lucy bequeathed her estates to the
Percys, it was upon condition they joined her arms with their own. Says
Dugdale, ' it is likely WiUiam de Charlcott took the name of Lucy to oblige his
mother.' And I say further, it is likely he took the arms of the Lucy's at the same
time."
The Lucy is the finest fish,
That ever graced any dish. — Fuller s TForthies, ed. 1811, i. 47.
A luce is, properly speaking, a full-grown pike. " The pike, as he ageth,
receiveth diverse names, as from a frie to a gilthed, from a gilthed to a pod, from
a pod to a jacke, from a jacke to a pickerell, from a pickerell to a pike, and last
of all to a luce," Harrison's Description of England, p. 224.
Ful many a fat partrich bad he in mewe,
And many a brem and many a luce in stewe;
Woo was his cook, but if his sauce were
Poynant and scharp, and redy al his gere. — Chaucer.
Diches sumtyme there samons used to baunte,
Lampreyes, lucys, or pykys plesaunt.
Piers of Fulham, ap. Hartshorne, p. 118.
''Luonus, a lewse," Nominale MS. "Luce, fyscbe, Iticitis,"' Prompt. Parv.
There is preserved at Charlecote a picture, of the seventeenth century, representing
a very large pike or luce caught in the river Avon^ which runs under the windows
of that ancient seat. " Sable, three luces hauriant argent, are described as the
arms of the family of Pishacre, seated at Combe Pishacre in the parish of Ipplepen,
(;o. Devon, in the reign of Henry the Second," — Moule.
Stowe relates that, in the year 1298, the Pishmongers' Company of London,
" in a solemne procession passed thorow the Citie, having, amongst other pageants
and shewes, foure sturgeons gilt, carried on foure horses ; then foure salmons of
silver on foure horses, and, after them, sixe and forty armed knights, riding on
horses, made like luces of the sea," Survey of London, ed. 1033, p. 78. The sea
luce, according to Cotgrave, is the cod. The sense
of the text would be simply this — the luce in our
coat is the fresh-water-fish; there is also another
luce borne in heraldry, which is likewise an old
coat, but that is a salt-water fish. I do not think
Shallow is condescending to answer the speech of
Evans ; he is carrying on the formal account of his
armorial bearings. This explanation is similar to
one suggested by Mr. Pairholt, who considers that
the fact of a stock-fish forming the principal featiue
of the ancient arms of Iceland (see the accompany-
ing engraving), is a lucid and sufficient explanation
of the passage in the text. Sea luces are also found in heraldry.
The following explanation was suggested by myself in another work: — ^Theluce
is the pike or fresh fish mentioned by Shallow, who is very anxious to explain the
blunder made by Evans, and therefore tells him the luce is the fresh fish, but that in
II. 30
2S2
NOTES TO THE EIRST ACT.
his most ancient coat of arms, a soa-water luce was (le})icte(l. Shallow will not
even have a fresh llsh in his coat of arms, and lience the humour of his explana-
tory observations. According to Capell,/ when Shallow commences his speech, he
addresses Slender, and shows him his seal-ring-. Without this direction, he
observes, — "no reader can have any the most distant conception of what Shallow
would be at, or who he speaks to: and, with it, many may be glad to see the words
of his speech further open'd in this manner ; — The luce that you see here in my
coat of arms is the fresh-water luce ; but tliere is likewise a salt-water luce, which
is an old coat too: — His saying afterwards, that Slender might quarter hy Diarryiiu/,
means — by yom- having had ancestors who have intermarry'd with some of my
family.")
It is remarkable that the seal used by Sir Tliomas Lucy was not that which
is })laced over his tomb, and which all the heralds have ascribed to his family,
" gules, three Lucies liariant argent," but three of the same little fishes braced or
entwined ; similar, in this respect, to a coat assigned to another ancient family.
See Eerne's Ehizon of Gentrie, 4to. 1584, p. 232,—" Tliis [the shield in the
margin] you will confess to agree with the name ; and yet it is honourable as may
be. It is the coat of Geffrey Lord Lucy. He did bear gules, three lucies hariant,
argent." In a subsequent page, the same author adds, "In like manner. Trout-
beck hath taken up three trouts, whose coat, for the order of bearing the charge,
I will set before your face, in this scutcheon. This shield is azure, three trouts
braced in triangles argent, borne by the name of Troutbeck." A similar conceit
may be observed in the arms of the Arundel family, which are sable, six swallotvs
argent. In like manner, the family of Roche, who were Viscounts Eerraoy, in
Ireland, bore three roches in their arms. In allusion to this coat of arms, and to
his surname. Dr. AVilliam Lucy (grandson to Shakespeare's Sir Thomas Lucy),
who finally became Bishop of St. David's, published in 1657, "Observations, &c.,
on Hobbes's Leviathan," under the disguised name of Christopher Pike ; on which
Waller very gravely observes, that "no Englishman, who had not dabbled into
Latin, would have changed so good a name as Lucy into that of a fish." But we
see, the Bishop did not need to have recourse to the Latin, lucim ; the language
of heraldry, at least, furnished Iiim tlie same word anglicised. — Malone.
The dozen white louses mean body-lice. Thus, in the explanation of the
frontispiece to the Unlucky Citizen, 1G72, we have
But in the basis of this frontispiece.
You '11 see a strong stone doublet lin'd with lice.
But Shallow, understanding louses as luces, says Luce is a fresh fish, which means,
that they may not give the dozen white luces in your coat, for the luce is a fresh
fish, the salt fish is an old coat, because it has been kept. A louse is a beast, a
petite bete, familiar to man, and signifies — Love, sticks to him like love. —
Weston.
The luce is the fresh fish; the salt fish is an old coat. That is, the fresh fish
is the coat of an ancient family, and the salt fish is the coat of a merchant grown
rich by trading over the sea. — Johnson. 1 fancy the latter part of the speech
should be given to Sir Hugh, who is at cross purposes with the Justice. Shallow
had said just before, the coat- is an old one ; and now, that it is the luce,
the fresh fish. No, replies the parson, it cannot be old and fresh too — the salt
fish is an old coat. — Steevens.
Perhaps we have not yet conceived the humour of Master Shallow. Slender
has observed, that the family might give a dozen iDhite Luces in their coat ; to
which the Justice adds, "It is an old one." This produces the Parson's blunder,
and Shallow's correction. " The Luce is not the Louse but the Pike, tlie fresh fish —
XOTES TO THE FIRST ACT.
283
of tliat name. Indeed our Coat is old, as I said, and the fish cannot ha fresh ; and
therefore we bear the white, i. e. the pickled or salt fish.'' In the Northumberland
Household Book, we meet with " nine barrels of white herringe for a hole yere,
4. 10. 0 :" and Pennant, in the additions to his London, says, " By the very high price
of the pike, it is probable that this fish had not yet been introduced into our ponds,
but was imported as a luxury, pickled." It will be still clearer if we read — 'Hhout/h
salt fish ill an old coat." — Farmer.
The present long and unsatisfactory note may be conchuled by the following
extracts from Holme's Academy of Armory, 1688 : — "A Luce, or Lucie : See this
described in the Pike, numb. 23. three such Hauriant A. Born by LucyJ . . He
beareth Vert, a Pike Or., born by Pickell. Of some for distinction sake, and to
decipher it from another thing of that name, it is termed a pike fish : also a lucie,
and a hurling. It is call'd in Latine, Lucius, from Lupus, because it is as great a
devourer of fish in the waters, as the wolfe is on the land ; it hath a long and
sharp snout, with sharp teeth : a long and slender body, with two fins opposite one
to the other, near the tail ; two fins under the throat, and two in the midle of the
belly, the one beside the other; the tail, forked^ . . He beareth Gules a Lucioperca,
proper. This is called a Lucy-pearch, of Lucius and Perca, being a bastard fish,
resembling both the lucy or pike, and the pearch : that is to say, the form and
shape of body, like the pike ; in the greatness, order, and roughness, or sharpness
of the scales, is like the pearch. The two fins on the back, that next the head
hooked, or with pricks, the other smooth, are erected almost three fingers in length;
the eyes white. The fish is, at his full growth, near three foot long : in the
highest part of the back, and towards the sides, are many transverse blackish spots,
as is seen in the pearch. This is born by Yan Luciperg."
° The Council shall hear it ; it is a riot.
He alludes, says Dr. Grey, to aistatute made in the reign of K. Henry IV.,
(13 chap. 7.) by which it is (enacted, " That the justices, three or two of them, and
the sheriS", shall certify before the king, and his counselle, all the deeds and cir-
cumstances thereof (namely the riot), which certification should be of the like force
as the presentment of twelve : upon which certificate the trespassers and offenders
shall be put to answer, and they which be found guilty shall be punished, according
to the discretion of the kinge and counselle." To this Blackstone adds, — 05y the
Council is only meant the court of Star-chamber, composed chiefly of the king's
council sitting in C^M^m stellatd, which took cognizance of atrocious riots. In the
old quarto, " the council shall know it," follows immediately after, " I'll make a
Star-Chamber matter of it."
No marvel, men of such a sumptuous dyet
Were brought into the Star-Chamber for a ryot.
Sir John Haringtou s Epigrams, I6I8.
^° Take your vizaments in that.
Vizaments, that is, advisements or deliberations. " Having an huge lake or
portion of the sea in the middest of them, which is not without perill to such as
with small advisement enter into the same," Harrison's Description of Britaine,
p. ^3. The following examples are given by Steevens from the ancient morality
oi Every Man: — "That I may amend me with good advysement." — Again: "I
shall smite without any advysement^'' — Again : " To go with good adrysements and
delyberacyon." It is often used by Spenser in his Paerie Queene. So, b. ii. c. 9:
— " Perhaps my succour and advizement meete." — Steevens.
Tfliich is daughter to master George Page.
The folio has Thomas Page, which Capell thinks may be the correct reading,
NOTES TO THE EIRST ACT.
" as siiltinii- the speaker's cliaracter, who, neiilier in names nor anything, is a very
accurate cliscourser."
Mistress Anne Page.
^ Mistress was the title of an unmarried lady, up to the commencement of the
last century, A MS. dated 1716 mentions "Mistress Elizabeth Seig-noret, spinster,"
and Defoe applies the term similarly in his Eortunes of Moll Flanders, 1722.
Shakespeare's grand-daug-liter is called Mistress Elizabeth Hall, in the parish
register of Stratford-on-Avon : the Christian name being thus given, to distinguish
the dauq-hter from the motherj
And speaks small like a ivoman.
This, observes Mr. Hunter, " is evidently a quotation of something which he
had read or heard as the cliaracter of a man, and which he thus inaptly a])plies to
a woman." Small, weak, applied to the voice. See notes on A Midsummer
Night's Dream, act i. Slender is always misquoting.
" It- may be doubted whether the real humour of this speech has been pointed
out. Does it not consist in Slender's characterizing Anne Page by a property
belono-ins: to himself, and which renders him ridiculous ? The audience would
naturally smile, at hearing him deliver the speech in an effeminate tone of voice."
— Douce.
His poetry is such as he can cull
Erom playes he heard at Curtaine or at Bull,
And yet is fine coy mistres, Mary MufFe,
The soonest taken with such broken stuffe.
Withers Abuses Stript and Whipt, 1622.
If tee leave our prihhles and prahhles.
Good woman, hold your peace, your prittles and your prattles, your bibbles and
your babbles; for I pray you heare mee in private, 1 am a widdower, and you are
almost a widdow ; shal I be welcom to your houses, to your tables, and your other
things. — Marstons Dutch Courtezan, 1605.
A fellon being carted away toward the gallowes, a country-man of his met him,
and said : Why, whether away, Country-man ? what all a la mort ? Ifaith (he
answered) even to yonder townes end, to end a pribble-prabhle matter. — Copley's
Wits, Fits, and Fancies, 1614.
By St. Tavy, Eop was fery coot difersions to Winny; there is fine tittle tattles,
and pribbles and prabbles, that makes Winny laugh till her pones akes agen. —
Sir Barnaby Whigg, 1681.
Did her grandsire leave her seven hundred pound?
"This speech, and another three lines after, beginning, I know, are, by every
former impression, given to Slender : The alteration, that is now made, shall
speak for itself : and when Slender's preceding speech, and Shallow's following,
the matter and very cadence of these in question, together with the frequency of
this sort of error, are at all reflected upon ; if there can be then any doubt
whether these speeches do indeed belong to the person they are now given to,
conjecture is nothing, and error, authoriz'd, must keep it's place everywhere," C'ajt?^//.
Her father is make her a petter penny.
A proverbial phrase : " Civ. You say well, sister Delia, you say well ; but I
mean to live within my bounds : for look you, I have set down my rest thus far,
but to maintain my wife in her Erencli-hood and her coach, keep a couple of
geldings and a brace of grey-hounds ; and this is all I'll do. — Del. And you'll
NOTES TO THE EIEST ACT.
285
do this with forty pounds a-year ? Civ. Ay, and a better penny, sister." — London
Prodigal.
^'^ Seven hundred pounds and possibilities.
Possibilities is generally used for possessions. The word is well illustrated ])y
a MS. in Dulwich College, dated about IGIO, being a letter from a suitor to a
father for his permission to woo the daughter, in which he says, — "I ryette to you
first this cisone, as Londone faslien is, to intrete you that I may have your good
will and your wiefs, for if we geete the fathers good will first, then may wee bolder
spake to the datter, for my possebeletis is abel to manteyne her."
How does your fallow greyhound.
Fallow, a pale yellow, (A. S.) " His lire falowede," his face turned a pale
yellow, MS. Lincoln A. i. 17, f. 94 )
Eor though my belching sent of wine or ale.
Although my face bee falloe, puft, and pale.
Mirour for Magistrates, 1587.)
He was out -run on Cotsall.
Such royall pastimes Cotswold mountains fill,
When gentle swains visit her glorious hill :
Where with such packs of hounds they hunting goe,
As Cyrus ne're did winde his bugle to !
Whose noise is musicall ; and with full cries
Beats o're the feilds, and ecclioes through the skies.
Orion hearing wish'd to leave his spheare,
And call his dogge from heaven, to sport it there.
Watt, though he fled for life, yet joy'd witliall
So brave a dirge sung forth his funerall.
Not Syrens sweetlier rill, hares as they flie
Look back, as glad to listen, loth to die.
The. No doubt but from this brave heroick fire
In the more noble hearts, sparks of desire
May warme the colder boores, and emulous strife
Give the old Mirth and Innocence a new life.
When thoughts of fame their quickned souls shall fill,
At every glaunce that shewes 'em Cotswold hill.
Coll. There shepheard, there, the solemn games be playd,
Such as great Theseus, or Alcides made :
Such as Apollo wishes he had scene.
And Jove desires had his invention beene !
TThe Nemean, and the Isthmian pastimes still.
Though dead in Greece, survive on Cotswold hill.
MandolpKs Poems, 4to. Lond. 1638.
'Tis your fault.
That is, it is iyour misfortune. Fault is frequently used in this sense by old
writers. ShalloAv, with great kindness, tries to console Page in a matter to which
Slender injudiciously persists in alluding. There is, says Shallow, no necessity
whatever for Page to confess it ; the defeat of the dog is merely to be attributed
to an accidental circumstance ; it was your ill luck, for the dog is, nevertlieless, a
good one. j
2SG
NOTES TO THE EIllST ACT.
Broke open my lodye.
If any local allusion be here intended, the traditional account of the neig'h-
bourhood, which only indicates the lodge in Eulbrooke Park (licre represented)
as the place to which Shakcs])eare
was taken after he was detected
in his poaching exploit, may be
supposed originally to have in-
cluded some additional circum-
stances, which are now lost. The
whole scene is probably replete
Avith delicate allusions, the exact
meaning of which can never be
recovered : and there is, in all like-
lihood, a deeper satire in this
scene on Sir Thomas Lucy than
has been suspected.
But I cannot altogether blame the carelesnesse of the world, in that it is
become so sparing of good indevours, when there is neither reward for well doing,
nor recompence for good desert: nor so much as a memorandum for the most
honourable enterprises, how worthily soever performed, unlesse perhaps a little
commendations in a ballad; or if a man be favored by a playmaker, he may
sometimes be canonized on a stage. — B. BicJis Fruites of Long Expe-
rience, 1G04, p. 21.
If it were known in counsel.
Steevens suggests that EalstafF quibbles between council and counsel. In this
sense, Ealstaff's meaning would be — 'Twere better for you if it were known only
in secresy, i. e. among your friends : a more public complaint would subject you to
ridicule. Eitson thinks the ordinary interpretation just, but Malone adduces the
spelling of the w^ords in the old quarto as an argument in favour of Steevens'
reading ; and, from a MS. mentioned by Malone, it would appear that the
equivoque was less strained then than it appears to be now. Some editors of the
last century read, " if it were not known," which merely serves to impair the
intentional irony. The following notes on the passage are extracted from
Steevens, Eeed, and Malone : —
Ealstaff's meaning seems to be — 'twere better for you if it were known only in
secrecy, i. e. among your friends. A more publick complaint would subject you to
ridicule. Thus, in Chaucer's Prologue to the Squires Tale,
But wete ye what ? in conseil be it seyde,")
Me reweth sore I am unto hire teyde.
Again, in the ancient MS. Romance of the Sowdon of Babyloyne, the original
of which is now preserved at Middle-Hill, co. "Worcester,
And saide, sir, for alle loves
Lete me thy prisoneres seen,
I w ole thee gife both goolde and gloves,
And counsaU shall it been.
Again, in Gammer Gurton's Needle,)
But first for you in councel, I have a word or twame.
Ritson supposes the present reading to be just, and quite in Ealstaff's insolent
sneering manner, — " It would be much better, indeed, to have it known in the
NOTES TO THE EIRST ACT.
287
Council, where you would only be laughed at." The spelling of the old quarto
[counsel), as well as the general purport of the passage, fully confirms Steevens'
interpretation. — "SJial. Well, the Coimcell shall know it, Fal. 'Tvvere better for
you 'twere knowne in coumell. You'll be laugh't at." In an office-book of Sir
Heneage Thomas, Treasurer of the Chambers to Queen Elizabeth (MS. Erit. Mus.),
whenever the Privy Council is mentioned, the word is always spelt Counsel ; so that
the play upon the word would probably have been at once appreciated in
Shakespeare's time, f' Mum is Counsell, viz. silence,''; is among (tEowell's Pro-
verbial Sentences, appended to the Lex. Tet., 1660. ^
Good worts! good cabbage.
Worts were any kind of pot-herbs, but here, and in some other places, the term
seems to apply only to coleworts or cabbages. {''JFourts, all kind of hearbes that
serve for the potte," Baret, 1580. * " Planting of worts and onions," Yalentinian.
C'Layawoort leafe upon it," Lupton's Notable Things., "Wortes for potage,"
Palsgrave, fol. Lond. 1530.
^* Theg carried me to the tavern, ^c.
" These words, which are necessary to introduce what Falstaff says afterwards,
'Pistol, did you pick master Slender's purse?,' 1 have restored from the early
quarto. Of this circumstance, as the play is exhibited in the folio. Sir John could
have no knowledge." — Malone. "We might suppose that EalstaflP was already
acquainted with this robbery, and had received his share of it, as in the case of the
handle of mistress Bridget's fan. His question, therefore, may be said to arise at
once from conscious guilt and pretended ignorance. 1 have, however, adopted
Mr. Malone's restoration." — Steevens.
Tou Banbury cheese I
Banbury cheese was and is a sort of soft cream-cheese, about one inch in
thickness, almost white, and of a very superior flavor to otacr cheese of the same
kind. It is now known in Banbury as latter-made cheese, as it can only be made
after Michaelmas (Beesley's History of Banbury, p. 568). There can scarcely be
a question but that this is the species of cheese alluded to by Siiakespeare, Slender
being so thin, and thence having the term ludicrously ap])lied to him"; and the
matter seems to be placed beyond a doubt by the following very curious receipt for
making this cheese, which is given in a MS. of the time of Henry Vlll., — ''To
make Banbery Chese. — Take a thin ches-fat, and bote mylk as it comus from the
cou, and ryn it forth withal in somer tyme, and kned your cruddz bot onus, and
kned them not to smal, bot breke them onus with your hondez ; and in somer
tyme salt the cruddz nothyng, bot let the chese lye iij. dayes unsalted, and then
salt them, and lay oon upon an other, but not to much salt, and so shal they
gethur buttur ; and in wyntur tyme in like wyse, bot then hete your mylk and salt
your cruddz, for then it wil gether buttur of itself. Take the wrunge whey of the
same mylk, and let it stand a day or ij. til it have a creme, and it shal make as good
buttur as any other." — MS. Sloane 1201, f. 3. The price of a Banbury-cheese in
the year 1556 was eight-pence, as appears from an entry in the Corporation records
for that year, — " Payd for vj. copull of ches that wer sennt to London, viij. s,"
Another early notice of Banbury cheese occurs in' Hey wood's Epigrammes, 1577 —
\ never saw Banbery cheese thicke enough.
But I have oft scene Essex cheese quicke enough.
A comparison, similar to that in the text, is found in Jack Drums Enter-
tainment, 1601,' — V Put off your cloatlies, and you are like a Banbery cheese,
nothing but paring."
"Nunc autem conficiendo caseo notissimum," Camdeni Britannia, ed. 1590,
288
NOTES TO THE ElPvST ACT.
p. 287. " Now tlie fame of this townc is for zeale, cheese, and cakes," cd. Holland,
Ibl. IGIO, J). 370. " There is a credible story tliat while IMiilemon Holland was
carrying- on his English edition of this Britannia, Mr. Camden came accidentally
to the press, when this sheet was working- off; and looking- on, he found that to
^ his own observation of Banbury being famous for cheese, the translator had added
cakes and ale : but Mr. Camden, thinking it too light an expression, chang'd the
word ale into seal, and so it pass'd, to the great indignation of the i)uritans of this
town," — Additions to the Britannia, ed. 101)5, p. 270. This anecdote is in some
measure contradicted by Camden himself, who declares that the word zeal was
inserted by the compositor or printer, Taylor, the water-poet, observes that
"Banbury is a goodly faire market towne, and (as the learned Cambden) it is
famous for cakes, cheese, and zeale."
Brad-ford if I should rightly set it forth,
Stile it I might Banberry of the North,
And well this title with the towne agrees,
Eamous for twanging ale, zeale, cakes and cheese :
But why should I set zeale behinde their ale?
Because zeale is for some, but ale for all.
BratJmaifs Strappado for the Divell, Svo. Lond. 1615.
Invites him to supper either to his owne or some of his neighbours' houses, and
when they have almost made an end, insteed of a messe of fruit, or a peece of
Banbury cheese, to close up their stomackes, a brace or more of sargeants are not
farre from his shoidder. — Femiors Compter s Common- Wealth, 1617.
"Of all cheeses, I take that kinde which we caU Banbury cheese to be the
best," Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, ed. 1652, p. 67. "As for our country
cheeses, Banbury and Cheshire yields the most, and are best ; to which the Holland
cheeses might be justly compared, if their makers could but soberly put in salt,"
MufFet's Healths Improvement, 4to. 1055, p. 133. It would appear from this last
extract, that there was another kind of Banbury cheese, differing from that above
described. "Banbury zeale, cheese, and cakes," Euller's Worthies, ed. 1602,
Oxfordshire, p. 328. " The rich and fine town of Banbury for cheese," Cham-
berlayne's Angli£E Notitia, ed. 1094, p. 20 ; which is repeated in the editions of
that work as late as 1755.
How now, Mephostophilus !
The name of this character, taken from the popular history of Dr. Eaustus, was
often jocularly used, either in contempt, abuse, or sometimes merely in jest.
"Away, you Islington whitepot . . . you broild carbonado ! avant, avant, avoyd,
Mephistophilus," Shoo-makers Holyday, or the Gentle Craft. " Thou must run of
an errand for me, Mephostophilus," Untrussing of the Humorous Poet. " We
want not you to play Mephostophilus — a pretty natural vizard !", Muses Looking
Glass, 1038. ''Sir Dot. Heard what, sir? Why her prayers (as she caUs 'em),
her witches Litany, that she and her young Mephistophilus were conjuring
together. Pal. Conjuring and Mephistophilus ! Mercy upon us ; what do you
mean?" — World in the Moon, 1097. "What says your Mephistophilus? will
he bring it?", Old Mode and the New, 1709. Steevens considers that Pistol
means to call Slender a very ugly feUow, and he quotes the following lines from
Turner's Nosce Te, 1007,—
0 face, no face hath our Theophilus,
But the right forme of Mephostophilus.
1 know 'twould serve, and yet I am no wizard,
To play the devil i'the vault without a vizard.
NOTES TO THE EIKST ACT.
289
The following is the second chapter in " The History of Doctor John EaUstus,
compiled in verse, very pleasant and delightfull," 12mo. 1664, bl. 1., —
How Doctor Faustus conju/d tip, from out a globe of fire.
The spirit MepJiostophiles, that came lihe to a fryer.
Now Eaustus, pm-posing alone to try
The power of this his magick mistery,
He did repair unto a little wood,
And not far off from Wittenberg it stood ;
Where he did make a circle with his wand,
And thus with charms his spirit did command :
'Mephostopliiles, I say, — Quickly rise and come away!
By Lucifer I charge thee here — that thou forthwith do appear.'
With this a murmure in the wood was heard,
That Doctor Eaustus grew himself afeard ;
The wood with lightning seemed on a flame,
And loudest thunder terror did proclaim.
Till Doctor Eaustus, in his magick robe
Looking about him, spy'd a fiery globe.
And, at the last, from this same globe of fire,
The spirit came in likeness of a fryer ;
Who lightly round about the circle ran.
And thus to speak to Eaustus he began :
'Eaustus (sales he) I now am come ;
Speak thy wiU, and it is done !'
When Mephistophiles did thus kindly greet him,
Then Doctor Eaustus bid the spirit meet him
The next day at his house : the spirit did consent,
And back again then Doctor Eaustus went.
Thafs my humour.
1 love not to disquiet ghosts, sir,
Of any people living ; that's my humour, sir.
The Second Maiden 8 Tragedy, 1611, MS. Lansd.
He hears with ears.
Adopted most probably from the Scriptures, — we have heard with our ears,"
Psal. xliv. 1.^ "Sometime we heare with eare a noyse," Tiirbervile's Ovid, 1567.
" The first surplusage the Greekes caU Pleonasmus, I call him too full speech, and
is no great fault, as if one should say, I heard it with mine eares, and saw it with
mine eyes, as if a man could heare with his heeles, or see with his nose," Putten-
ham's Arte of English Poesie, 1589. Cf. 2 Henry IV., act ii.
Seven groats in mill-sixpences.
One of Slender's blunders. These sixpences, says Douce, were coined in 1561,
and are the first milled money used
in this kingdom, having been in-
vented by Antoine Brucher in Erance,
and struck in that country about
the year 1553. Elizabeth coined
milled money from 1561 to about
1572, when the use of the mill was
discontinued, on account of its
expense, till about 1623 ; and after
the Eestoration, its universal usage was finally established (Nares, 323).
n. 37
290
NOTES TO THE EIRST ACT.
Coc. What was tlicrc i'tliy purse, thou kccjj'st such a wliinino;; was tlie lease
of thy house iu it. Fn. Or thy grannams silver ring. CI. No, but a mill sixe-
l)ence I lov'cl as dearely, and a two-pence I had to spend over and above ; besides ;
the hari)er that was gathered amongst us, to pay the piper. — Ben Jonsons
Masques, p. C7, fol. ed.
Had I in all the Avorld but forty mark,
And that got by my needle and making socks ;
And were that ibrtie mark mil-sixpences,
Spurroyals, Harry groats, or such odde coine
Of husbandry as in the Kings raigne now
Would never passe, I would despise you.
Mapies Oitye Match, fol. Lond. 1G39.
It appears from a passage in Davenant's Newes from Plimouth, 1673, that
these sixpences were sometimes preserved to be used as counters — "A few mill'd
sixpences, with wdiich my purser casts accorapt."
^ Two Edward sliovel-hoards.
(^Tlie broad shillings of Edward VI. much prized, for long after this period, for
the game of shovel-board. The quarto reads, "two faire shovel-board shillings ;"
and Taylor, the Water-Poet, observes that '^Edward shillings for the most part are
used at shoove-boord." Even as late as Shadwell's time, a person is mentioned
(the Miser, 1672) as losing at backgammon "his Edward shillings that he kept for
shovel-board." A Stratford tradition, of uncertain antiquity, declares that
Shakespeare himself was fond of playing this game, and there is (or was until
lately) preserved at the Ealcon Inn a shovel-board, here represented, which w^as
sixteen feet and a half in length, and which was said to have been the identical
table at which the bard played. The game is now generally played on a table or
board about 40 feet long and 18 inches wide. It is made of clean white pine
without knots, and fine sand is sifted all over, to enable the players to shovel their
pieces along. On each side of the board there are narrow troughs or gutters, to
catch the pieces if they fly off, w^hich they very frequently do. The game is
played by two persons, who have each four pieces, numbered 1 to 4. The pieces
are of brass, exactly the size and form of half pound flat weights. A line is
marked across the board, about half a foot from the farther extremity, and the art
is to discharge the piece from the hand with just sufiicient force to go beyond the
line, which counts so many; but if the piece lies half off and half on the farther
end, it counts double; to accomplish which, requires great skill and long practice.
The players play off their pieces alternately, and the chief effort is to knock the
antagonist's piece from the table. They stand close to the end of the board,
holding the piece firmly between the fingers and thumb, and, after giving the hand
three or four rapid whirls, from right to left, the piece is discharged, with what
may be judged sufficient force to reach the end of the board without flying off. In
Shakespeare's time, it is most probable that the game was played somewhat
NOTES TO THE FIEST ACT.
291
differently, in a manner analogous to shove-groat; and the reader is referred to
the notes to 2 Henry IV., for further information respecting these games, and the
shove-groat shilling.
I smelt the powder, spied what linstock gave fire to shoot against the poor
captain of the galley-foist, and away slid I my man like a shovel-board shilling. —
Middleton's Works, ed. Dyce, ii.^531.
According to Mr. Eairholt, i,"the broad shillings of Edward VI. were first
issued with his improved second coinage of I55I, the original coinage having been
greatly debased with alloy."
The question of the cost of
the two shillings to Slender, is
thus plausibly explained by
C Douce, — "We must suppose
that the shillings purchased of
the miller had been lioarded
by him, and were in high
preservation, and heavier than
those which had been worn
in circulation : these would
consequently be of greater
importance to a nice player at the game of shovel-board, and induce him,
especially if an opulent man, to procure them at a price far beyond their original
value." It is, however, very probable that Slender had been imposed upon, and
that the passage in the text was intended to raise a laugh at his expense, by his
own naive confession of his simplicity in giving a price so much beyond the real
value of the coins.
/ comhat challenge of this latten bilbo.
'^The latten of the olden time was a kind of mixed metal often very much
resembling brass in its nature and colour, but sometimes white, " white laten"
being mentioned in a will dated in 1540. Various articles were made of it, as a
cross, Chaucer Cant. T. 701 ; a bason. Piers Ploughman, p. 462, and Turbervile's
Ealconry, 1575; small bells, Eutland Papers, p. 7; hautboys, Ben Jonson;
window-frames, Bevys of Hampton ; monumental effigies, Pr. Parv. p. 289, note ;
a cathedral candlestick, Davies's Ancient Hites, 1672 ; other candlesticks, wiU
dated 1493; spoons. Devil's Law Case, 1623; kettles, "kettylles of latton to
serve in my lord's kichen ;" Egremont MSS., &c. "A basyn and an euer of laten
cownterfet" are noted in a wiU of 1463. Gower speaks of —
The craft whiche thylk tyme was,
To worken in laton and in bras.
which apparently makes a distinction between the two metals ; but the difference
was unquestionably very shght, even if it at all existed. "Latone, metal,
auricalciim" Pr. Parv. "■Aiiricalcum, id e^i,fex auri, laten or coper," Ortus Vocab.
(ibid.) '"Latten metall, as coronarium, aurichalcum''' Huloet, 1552.^ "^s cal-
dariimi, coY^Qv \ ces coronarium, latyne mettall," Elyotes Dictionarie, ed. 1559.
The last explanation also occurs, in the same words, in the Nomenclator, 1585,
and in various vocabularies. In Porta Linguarum, 1637, latten is thus defined,
" brasse dyed with oare; it can only be melted, because of its easinesse to be broken."
The assertion above made, that there was formerly a white kind of latten, is con-
firmed by Chaucer, who speaks of the sun when " he shone ful pale," as heiced like
laton. " Roman latten" is mentioned in the play of Lingua, 1607.
292
NOTES TO THE EIUST ACT.
TJ^pon the est-yatc of the toiin,
lie made a man of fin laloiiii. — The Sevyn Sages, 1997-8.
Then take a ])i))c of laten tliat is wide at the lower end, and small above ; then
set the wide end to the stone, and tlie small upward, and let tlie smoke i>()e into
thy mouth ; for this will kill all the wormes : it hath beene proved. — The VathiDaij
to Ilealfh, f. IG.
But if you arc willing to boyl your cider, your vessel ought to be of latten,
which may be made large enough to boyl a good quantity, the tin yielding no bad
tincture to the liquor. — lForlid<je on Cider, ed. 1G78.
The modern latten is composed of copper and calamine ; the goodness of it
depends, in a great measure, upon the quantity of the calamine employed in its
composition. Black Latten, or Latten Brass, is imported in thin sheets of various
sizes, sometimes scraped witli a knife. It is used by braziers for making brass
kettles, to])S of warming pans, &c. Vast quantities of it are made into latten
wire, which, being extremely flexible, is of considerable utility in various branches
of the mechanical arts. Shaven Latten is distinguished from black latten by its
thinness, and brightness on both sides of the sheets. Abundance of latten is made
at Aix la Chapelle, and in different parts of Germany. Iron plates tinned over
are sometimes termed latten.
Bay, in his Collection of English Words, ed. I69I, p. 43, observes that a lath
is called a lat in the northern dialect ; whence Steevens thinks that latten, in the
text, may signify no more than, as thin as a lath.
Bilbo, Spanish sword,' so called from being manufactured at the town of
Bilboa in Spain. "One Sclavoye blade and one bylbo bronde," Loseley Manu-
scripts, p. 86. ^" Slice it, bilbowe blade," Looke about You, 1600.) " Blades of
Bilbo changing English blowes," Drayton's Barons' Warres, book i. " Thy bilboe
oft bath'd in the blood," Taylor's Workes, 1630 ; "the Bilbo of King Priam," ibid.
" AYith tragick bilbo girt upon his thigh," Wits Recreations, 1640. " The bilbo
blade and gray goose quill," Randolph's Jealous Lovers, 1646. " Who neither
bilbo nor invention pierces," Cleaveland's Poems, 1651 (ed. 1687, p. 273). "He
hung by's side his blade of bilbo," Homer a la Mode, 1665. "He had and a
good right Bilbo blade," Comical Revenge, or Love in a Tub, 1669. "A lady that
loves bilbo-men," Newes from Plimouth, 1673. " Battoone of crab, which serves
for bilboe and for wand," Davenant's Works, p. 289, and Wit and Drollery, p. 225.
" If y'are destitute of a knife, here is a young bilbo ; 'tis neer akin to old Bilbo,
my sword," Davenant's Siege, 1673, p. 69. "A constable heroically drunk, sur-
rounded with his rusty bilboe," Tom Essence, 1677. "An honest bilbo-smith
would make good blades," Brome's Northern Lasse. " My bold bilbo is eager to
slice all my foes," Plautus made English, 1694. "Go to work with long staff and
bdbo," Young King, or the Mistake, 1698. It is worthy of remark that the term
bilbo applied to a person, as in the text, is found earlier in ^ Grange's
Garden, 1577, — " Hir husbandes wealth shall wasted be upon hyr bilbowe
boyes."
Would you had kept your forge at JEtno. still.
And there made swords, bills, glaves, and armes your fill.
Maintain'd the trade at Bilbo, or else-where ;
Strooke in at Millan with the cutlers there. — Ben Jonson.
^" Word of denial in thy labras here.
Labras, lips [Sjmn.) Something similar is the expression, to lie in the throat,
elsewhere used by Shakespeare.
The gentlewoman was a little coye, but before they part they concluded that
NOTES TO THE FIRST ACT.
293
the next clay at foiire of the clock liee should come thitlier and eate a pound of
cherries, which was resolved on with a succado des lahras; and so with a loath to
depart, they took their leaves. — Tarltoiis Newes out of Purgatorie, 1590.
There are few words in the old copies more frequently misprinted than
the word hear. ":Z7^y labras," however, is certainly right, as appears from the old
quarto : "I do retort the lie even in thy gorge, thy gorge, thy gorge." — Malone.
I will say, 'Harry trap'
CMarry-gip, marry-come-up, and similar compounds, were phrases indicative of
great 'contempt. It is almost impossible to trace their exact meaning.
If you rim the mithooFs humour on me.
That is, if you insinuate that I am a thief. See observations on the Avord
mthooh in the notes to Henry IV.
What say you, scarlet and John.
Ealstalf here alludes to Bardolph's red face. Scarlet and John, in tlie
phraseology of the time, would be equivalent to scarlet John. The commentators,
however, say there is an allusion to Hobin Hood's companions, mentioned in the
old baUad, —
AU this be-heard three witty young men,
Twas Robin Hood, Scarlet and John;
With that they espy'd the jolly pinder.
As he sat under a thorn.
Bardolph's face became proverbial. There is a curious passage in Gayton's
Notes upon Don Quixote, fol. Lond. 1654, p. 48, — " If you will have names
more known and to the life, a Robin Goodfellowes face, a Bardolphs, a Furnifals
Inne face, or a Bradwels face, which was the blessed-dest that ever I saw."
There's some will talk of lords and knights.
And some of yeomen good :
' But I will teU you of AVill Scarlet,
Little John and Robin Hood. '
They were outlaws, as it was well known.
And men of noble blood,
And many a time their valour was shown
In the forest of merry Sheerwood. ^
Ballad of Robin Hood's Delight. '
And being fap. '
Fap, a cant term for, intoxicated. In the Poems by the Earls of Roscomon,
1739, p. 40, Shrewsbury is termed an "old adult'rous fap," meaning, probably, a
dissipated person ; unless it be there a corruption of fop. Capell says, fap is,
drunk; "and cashier d — carry'd out of the room: in doing which, that naturally
follow'd which is express'd in the words after it : amounting, indeed, to a confession
of Bardolph's thievery; but being Latin to others besides Slender, EalstafiP, who
understood it, converts it to a denial by him as well as the other two.') Mr.
Singer considers fap is a cant term for foolish, either from the Italian rappa,
translated by Elorio, 1598, "a man in whome is no wit or reason;" or from the
Latin vappa, " a dizzard, or foolish man, in whome is no witte or good reason,"
Thomasii Dictionarium, 1596. " The word fap is probably made from vappa, a
drunken fellow, or a good-for-nothing fellow, whose virtues are all exhaled:
Slender, in his answer, seems to understand that Bardolph had made use of a
Latin word," Malone's Shakespeare, ed. 1790.
291
NOTES TO THE EIEST ACT.
And so con elusions passed the careers.
And so, in the end, he reeled about in different directions, hke a horse passing
the careers. The hitter was a technical phrase in horsemanship, fully described by
Bhnulevile in a passage here quoted. "A carrirc, the short turning of a nimble
horse, now this way, nowe that way," Baret's Alvearie, 1580. Slender, being so
intoxicated as not to know properly in which way he lost his purse, extravagantly,
and out of all reason, concluded that those who turned him out of their company
ft)r his intoxication were so devoid of honour and principle as to pick his pocket.
lloio and ichen to teach your horse to passe a swift cariere. — Untill your horse
be perfect in aU points before taught, and speciallie that he can stop well, and
tlierwith advance before, as well in his trot as in his gallop : I would not wish you
in anic wise to runne him, unlesse it were in the verie beginning of his breaking,
to give him a cariere or two, onelie to knowe his swiftnesse and disposition, and so
to leave off, untiU he be better broken, and made meete to be run. Which when he
is, vou shall use tliis order following : ride him into some faire plaine sandie way,
void of all stumbling stones : and to acquaint him with the way, pace him faire
and softlie the length of a good cariere, which must be measured, according as the
horse is made ; for if he be a mightie puissant horse, and great of stature, then
the cariere would bee the shorter. So likewise must it be, when you would have
him to bound aloft in his cariere : but if he be made like a jennet, or of a middle
stature, then the cariere path may be the longer, yet not overlong. At the end
whereof, let him stop and advance, and, at the second bound, turne him faire and
softlie on the right hand, and so stale a little while. Then sodenlie saieng with a
liveUe voice, ' Hey,' or ' Now,' put him forward with both spurres at once, forcing
him all the way to run so swiftlie and so roundlie as he can possiblie, even to the
end, to the intent he may stop on his buttocks. That done, turne him on the left
hand, and pace him forth faire and softlie unto the other end of the cariere path,
and there stop him and turne him againe on the right hand, as you did before, and
so leave. — Blundeziles Art of Biding, 1580.
By your leave, good mistress.
The English custom of salutation is frequently alluded to by most of our old
writers. "Eor us to salute strangers with a kisse is counted but civilitie, but. with
forraine nations immodestie," — Hsec Vir, or the Womanish Man, 1G20. In
Westward for Smelts, 1620, a gentleman sent on a message to a lady, whom he
had never seen, " espied her in the fields, to whom he went and kissed her, a thing
no modest woman can deny."
My hooh of Songs and Sonnets.
Either a copy of Surrey's weU-known collection, or a volume kept by Slender
himself for the purpose of entering any he met with. It is known that common-
place books of all kinds were popular in Shakespeare's time, and that some of the
poet's own sonnets w'ere thus circulated long before they appeared in print. On
the other hand, 'the words of Slender exactly follow the title of Surrey's work.
" It cannot be supposed that poor Slender was himself a poet. He probably
means the poems of Lord Surrey and others, which were very popular in the age
of Queen Elizabeth. They were printed in 1557, sm. 4to., with this title : 'Songes
and Sonettes, by the Eight Honorable Lord Henry Haward, late Earl of Surrey,
and other.' Slender laments that he has not this fashionable book about him,
supposing it might have assisted him in paying his addresses to Anne Page."
— Molone.
"Under the title mentioned by Slender, Churchyard very evidently points out
this book in an enumeration of his own pieces, prefixed to a collection of verse
NOTES TO THE EIUST ACT.
205
and prose, called Churchyard's Challenge, 4to. 1593 : * — and many things in the
hoolic of soiKjes and sonels printed then, were of my making.' Ey then he means
'in Qucene Maries raigne ;' for Surrey was first published in 1557." — Steevens.
A sort of lewd rake-hells, that care neither for God, nor the devill ! And they
must come here to reade ballads, and rogery, and trash ! lie marre the knot
of 'hem ere I slecpe, perhaps : especially Boh, there: he that's all manner of sliapes!
and Songs and sonnets, his fellow. — Every Man in his Humour, fol. ed. p. 48.
^0 The Booh of Biddies.
The earliest printed collection of English riddles was the " Demaundes Joyous,"
a small tract printed by Wynkyn de Worde in the year 1511 ; a few examples of
which may be Avorth giving : — " Demaunde : How many calves tayles behoveth to
reclie frome the erthe to the skye ? E. No more but one and it be longe ynough. —
Demaunde : How many holy days be there in the yere tliat never fall on the
Sondayes? R. There be eyght, tliat
THE
BOOKE OF
MEERY.
Riddles.
Togetlieir with properQue-
ftions, andwicty Prouerl)s to
tnake plea(antp aRtme,
No le/Te vfeM then LeliooaefuJl
/oratiyyongTTian orcKild, toktiowif
hebe qulck-witted,orm
is to wete, the thre holy dayes after
Eester, iij. after Wliyt Sondaye, the
holy Ascencyon daye, and Corpus
Crysty day. — Demaunde : Whiche
ben the trulyest tolde thynges in the
worlde ? E. Those be the steyres of
chambres and houses. — Demaunde :
Whiche parte of a sergeaunte love
ye beste towarde you ? E. His heles.
— Demaunde : Whiche is the best
wood and leest brente ? E. Vynes. —
Demaunde : Whiche is the moost
profytable beest, and that men eteth
leest of? E. That is bees. — De-
maunde : Whiche is the brodest )
water, and leest jeopardye to passe
over ? E. The dewe. — Demaunde :
What thynge is it that never was
nor never shall be ? E. Never mouse
made her nest in a cattes ere. —
Demaunde : Why dryve men dogges
out of the chyrche? E. Bycause
they come not up and ofFre. —
Demaunde : Why dootli a dogge
tourne hym thryes aboute or that he
lyeth hym downe? E. Bycause he
knoweth not his beddes hede from
the fete. — Demaunde : Why doo men make an oven in the iowne ? E. Eor
bycause they can not make the towne in the oven. — Demaunde : How may
a man knowe or perceyve a cowe in a flocke of shepe? E. By syghtc. — J)e-
maunde : What almes is worst bestowed that men gyve ? E. That is to a blynde
man, for as he bathe ony thynge gyven hym, he wolde with good wyll se
hym hanged by the necke that gave it hym. — Demaunde : AVherfore set they
upon chyrche steples more a cocke than a henne? E. Yf men sholde sctte
there a henne, she wolde laye egges, and they wolde fall upon mennes hedes. —
Demaunde : What thynge is it that hathe none ende? E. A bowle. — Demaunde :
What wode is it that never flyes reste upon ? E. The claper of a lazcrs dysshe."
The " Book of Eiddels" is a later production, being named for the first time in
LONDON,
PrintedtyT'. C. ioi Htchdd sparhy
dwelling in Greene- Arhor, at tfie.
fjgneof the blue Bftlc,xda9.
296
NOTES TO THE EIEST ACT.
Lanoli.im's Letter, under that title, in 1575; and a<:^ain, in 158G, in tlic Englisli
(!i)urticr, — " the Biidg'ct of Dcniandcs, the Uundrcdth Merry Tales, the Booke of
Ixyddles, and many otlier excellent writers both witty and pleasaunt. ' This work
was, therefore, well known in the sixteenth century; but the earliest edition of it now
known to be preserved is in the curious library of the Earl of Ellesniere at Bridge-
water House, entitled " The Booke of Meery Biddies," 1G29, which is, in all
l)robability, a genuine reprint of the identical work mentioned by Slender. A fac-
simile of the title-pag-e is given (from another copy) in the preceding page ; the
following lines being printed, in the original, on the reverse of the opposite leaf : —
Is the wit quicke ? Then do not sticke
To read these riddles darke :
"Which if thou doe, and rightly too.
Thou art a witty sparke.
The volume contains seventy-six riddles at the commencement. Then follow
some burlesque lines, entitled "John Goose ;" a small collection of " Proper
Questions," which are, in fact, other riddles; and lastly, "Choice and Witty
]^-overbs," containing one hundred and thirty-three proverbial phrases. The
following selection from the riddles will suffice to exhibit the character of Slender's
favorite book ; and it is worthy of remark that the head-line in the original is
" The Booke of Kiddies," the exact title of the book mentioned in the play.
Here heghinetli the first Riddle. — Two legs sat upon three legs, and had one hsg
in her hand; then in came foure legs, and bare away one leg; then up start two
legs, and threw three legs at foure legs, and brought againe one leg. Solution. —
That is a woman with two legs sate on a stoole Avith three legs, and had a leg of
mutton in her hand ; then came a dog that hath foure legs, and bare away the leg
of mutton ; then up start the woman, and threw the stoole with three legs at the
dog with foure legs, and brought againe the leg of mutton.
The second Riddle. — He went to the wood and caught it,
He sate him downe and sought it ;
Because he could not finde it,
Home with him he brought it.
Solution. — That is a thorne : for a man went to the wood, and caught a thorne
in his foot ; and then he sate him down, and sought to have pulled it out, and
because he could not find it out, he must needs bring it home.
The iij. Riddle. — What work is that, the faster ye worke, longer it is ere ye
have done, and the slower ye worke, the sooner ye make an end ? Solution. —
That is turning of a spit : for if ye turne fast, it will be long ere the meat be
rosted, but if ye turn slowly, the sooner it is rosted.
The iv. Riddle. — What is that that shineth bright all day, and at night is raked
up in its owne dirt ? Solution. — That is the fire that burneth bright all the day,
and at night is raked up in his ashes.
The V. Riddle. — I have a tree of great honor.
Which tree beareth both fruit and flower ;
Twelve branches this tree hath nake.
Fifty {sic) nests therein he make,
And every nest hath birds seaven ;
Thanked be the King of Heaven ;
And every bird hath a divers name ;
How may all this together frame ?
Solution. — The tree is the yeare : the twelve branches be the twelve moneths ;
the fifty-two nests be the fifty-two weekes : the seven birds be the seven dayes in
the weeke, whereof every one hath a divers name.
NOTES TO THE EIEST ACT.
297
The xviii. Biddle. — What is the most profitable beast, and that men eat least
on? Solution. — It is a bee, for it maketli both honey and waxe, and yet costeth
his master nothing the keeping.
The xix. Mddle. — I am without it, and yet I have it ;
Tell me what it is, and pray God save it !
Solution. — It is my heart ; for I am without it, seeing that it is within me, for
ye may not understand by the riddle that I lacke it.
The XX. Riddle. — What is that that is like a mede,
And is not past a handfuU brede,
And hath a voyce like a man ?
You wiU tell this, but I know not when.
Solution. — It is little popingay : for it is greene like a mede, and is not past a
handfall broad, and it speaketh like a man.
The xxi. Riddle. — L. and U., and C. and L, so hight my lady at the font-
stone. Solution. — Her name is Lucy ; for in the first line is L. IJ. C. I., which
is Lucy. But this riddle must be put and read thus : — fifty and five, a hundred
and one : then is the riddle very proper ; for L. standeth for fifty, and U. for five,
C. for an hundred, and L for one.
The XXX. Riddle. — What is it that goes to the water on the head ? Solution.
— It is a horse-shoe naile.
The xxxii. Riddle. — What be they which be fuU all day, and empty at night ?
Solution. — It is a payre of shooes ; for in the day they be full of man's feete, but
at night, when he goes to bed, they be empty ; and it may be assoyled by any other
part of man's raiment.
The xxxiii. Riddle. — Who is he which eates his mother in his grandam's belly ?
Solution. — It is a worme in a nut ; for of the kernell of the nut commeth the
worme, therfore the kerneU is here taken for the mother of the worme ; and
of the shell the kerneU commeth, and, therefore, the shell is here taken for the
mother of the kernell, and the gran dam of the worme.
The xxxiv. Riddle. — Who is hee that runneth through the hedge, and his house
on his backe ? Solution. — That is a snaile ; which, wheresoever he goeth, caryeth
his house on his backe.
The xlii. Riddle. — What is it goeth to the wood, and his head homeward ?
Solution. — It is an axe hanging upon a man's backe, when he goeth to the wood.
The xliii. Riddle. — ^What is that goeth to the wood, and carieth his way on his
necke ? Solution. — It is a man that goeth to the wood to fell boughes, and
carrieth a ladder to get up.
The xliv. Riddle. — I came to a tree where were apples ; I eat no apples, I
gave away no apples, nor I left no apples behinde me ; and yet I eat, gave away,
and left behinde me. Solution. — There were three apples on the tree ; for I eat
one apple, gave away one apple, and left one. So I eat no apples, for I eat but
one apple, which is no apples ; and thus I gave away no apples, for I gave but
one ; and thus I left no apples, for I left but one.
The xlv. Riddle. — What is that as small as a nit.
And serves the king at every bit ?
Solution. — It is salt.
The li. Riddle.— M.J lover's will
I am content for to fulfill ;
Within this rime his name is framed ;
Tell me then how he is named ?
Solution. — His name is William ; for in the first line is icill, and in the
beginning of the second line is / am, and then put them both together, and it
maketh William.
II. 38
298
NOTES TO THE EIEST ACT.
The lii. Itkhlle. — What is that, as white as snow,
And yet as bhicke as any crow;
And more plyant then a wand,
And is tied in a silken band.
And every day a prince's peer
Lookcth npon it with sad cheere ?
Solution. — It is a booke tyed with a sillcen lace ; for the paper is white as
snow, and the inke is as blacke as a crow, and the leaves more pliant
then a wand.
The liii. 'Riddle. — What space is from the highest of the sea to the bottome ?
Solution. — A stone's cast; for a stone throwne in, be it never so deepe, will go to
the bottome.
The liv. Middle. — How many calves tailes will reach to the skye ? Solution. —
.One, if it be long enough.
The Iv. Middle. — Mary an Christ loved very well ;
My ladyes name here I doe tell,
Yet is her name neither Christ, nor Mary;
Tell me her name then, and do not tarry ?
SohcUon. — Her name is Marian ; for in the beginning it is said, Mary an
Christ : but this riddle is to be put without the booke, and not to be read, or else
it will soone be nerceived.
The Ivi. Middle. — What is that as white as milke,
As soft as silke,
As blacke as a coale.
And hops in the street like a steed foale ?
Solution. — It is a pye that hoppeth in the street ; for part of her feathers be
white, and part bee blacke.
The Ivii. Middle. — What is that goeth about the wood, and cannot get in ?
Solution. — It is the barke of a tree ; for never is the barke within the tree, but
alwayes without.
The Iviii. Middle. — What is that goeth through the wood, and leavetli on
every bush a rag ? Solution. — It is snow.
The Ixiii. Middle. — What is that no man would have, and yet, when he hath it,
will not forgoe it ? Solution. — It is a broken head, or such like ; for no man
would gladly have a broken head, and yet when he hath it, he would be loath to
lose his head, though it be broken.
The Ixiv. Middle. — What is that, that I can hold in my hand, and will not lye
in a great chest ? Solution. — It is a long speare.
The Lyv. Middle. — What is that, round as a ball.
Longer then Paul's steeple, weather-cocke, and all ?
Solution. — It is a round bottome of thred when it is unwound.
The Ixvi. Middle. — Downe in a meddow I have two swine ; the more meat I
give them, the lowder they cry; the lesse meat I give them, the stiller they lye.
Solution. — These be two milstones ; which the more they grind, the more noyse
they make ; and they be called swine here, because swine be fed with corne, and
so be they.
Tlie Ixvii. Middle. — What is that, that goeth thorow the wood, and toucheth
never a twig? Solution. — It is the blast of a horne, or any other noyse.
TJie Ixxii. Middle. — Over a water I must passe, and I must carry over a lamb,
a wolfe, and a bottle of hay; if I carry any more then one at once, my bote will
sinke ; if I carry over the bottle of hay first, and leave the laitibe and the wolfe
together, the wolfe will carry away my lambe ; if I carry over the wolfe first, the
lambe will eate my bottle of hay: now I would know how I should cary them over.
NOTES TO THE EIEST ACT.
299
BOOKE
OF MERRIE
RIDDLES.
Very meete and delight-
fall for ^'outh to try
their ^A^^ts.
so that I leave not the lambe with the wolfe, nor the bottle of hay with the lambe
on neither side ? Solution. — Eirst cary over the lambe, and then come againe
and fetch the wolfe, and bring the lambe backe againe on the other side ; and
then take the bottle of hay, and cary it, and then fetch over the lambe ; and so
the question is assoyled.
In the year 1631, was published, "A Booke of Merrie Riddles, very meete and
delightfull for youth to try their Wits ;" but this is not a reprint of the tract just
described, it being a separate
work, containing riddles only,
without the burlesque verses,
or the proverbs. The riddles,
however, are of a similar cha-
racter, and, in some instances,
identical. Another edition was
printed in 1672, "A Book of
Merry Kiddles : Very meet and
Delightful for Youth to try
their Wits. London, Printed
by E. C. for J. Wright, at
the Globe in Little-Brittain.
1672." This is a little tract
of twelve leaves, all in black-
letter, with the exception of
the title-page. The last leaf
is filled with wood-cuts, and
the text, with a few literal
variations, is a copy of
the edition of 1631 ; which
was likewise, I believe, re-
printed in 1660, although I
have seen no copy of that
edition. There was also a
chap-book copy of the Book
of Eiddles, reprinted, in various
forms, during the last and
present centuries ; amongst
which may be mentioned, "A
new Booke of merry Eiddles
in Picture," printed for C. Bates, n. d. Some critics have thought that Slender's
book was the "Eiddles of Heraclitus and Democritus," 4to. 1598, but they were
probably not acquainted with the collections above mentioned.
*^ A fortniglit afore Michaelmas.
Theobald would read Martlemas, on the supposition that the blunder in the
text is not in keeping with Simple's character ; " the simplest creatures (nay, even
naturals) generally are very precise in the knowledge of festivals, and marking
how the seasons run." There can, however, be little doubt but that the text is
correct, and that the blunder was intentional on the part of the author.
Simple though I stand here.
A proverbial phrase. " There is a neighbour of ours, an honest priest, who
was sometimes (simple as he now stands) a vice in a play, for want of a better,"
Hay any Worke for Cooper, n. d. " 1 was one of the mummers myself, simple as
LONDOU.
Printed for Robert Bitid^ and
are (o bee fold at lih flioppein
BiMe.
300
NOTES TO THE FIllST ACT.
I stand here," Traj>-e(r,c of Solimon and Pcrscda, 1599. " I am his next lipir, at
the common hwv, JMastcr Stephen, as shnplc as I stand here," Every Man in his
llnmour. "Simply tho' I stand here, I was he that lost it," Puritaine, 1607;
" simplie tho' it lies here, 'tis the fayrest roome in my mother's house," ibid.
"As simple as he standeth there, hee liath let his owne arrae blood himself instead
of a barber-surg-eon," The JMan in the Moone telling Strange Fortunes, 1G09.
" Simple as he stands there, he is bare sixteen years old," Shadwell's Amorous
Eigotte, 1G90.
And I doe lend some of them money, and full many fine men goe upon my
score, as simple as I stand heere, and I trust them; and truely they verie knightly
and courtly promise faire, give me verie good words, and a peece of flesh when
time of yere serves. — Marstoiis Butch Courtezan, 1G05.
Ster. God be at your worke, sir : my sonne told me you were the grating
gentleman ; I am Stercutio, his father, sir, simple as I stand here. — The Usturne
from Pernassus, 1006.
^ The lips is parcel of the month.
Parcel, that is, part. The term is still used in leases, " Parcell, a porcyon,"
Palsgrave, 1530. " In parcels, or piirtes, everie part one after another," Buret's
Alvearie, 1580. "■Parcelle, a parcell, particle, peece, little part," Cotgrave.
" Trinity Terme was now ended, for by description of the time, it could bee no
oi\\Qv parcell of the yeare," — Tom of all Trades, 1631.
The following notes on this passage are by Steevens : — To be parcel of any
thing, is an expression that often occurs in the old plays. So, in Decker's Satiro-
mastix : — " And make damnation parcel of your oath." Again, in Tamburlaine,
1590 : — " To make it parcel of my empery." This passage, however, might have
been designed as a ridicule on another, in John Lyly's Midas, 1592: — "Pet.
AVhat lips hath she ? — Li. Tush ! Lips are no part of the head, only made for a
double-leaf door for the mouth.'^
Upon familiarity icill grow more content.
So the first folio, Slender murdering the old proverb, " Too much familiarity
breeds contempt," Ray's Proverbs, ed. 1678, p. 136. Modern editors read
contempt, which certainly makes tlie blunder more laughable ; but i^s one of his
peculiarities is to misquote, the original text may well stand. - " When familiarity
breeds contempt, it is an error to be humble," Rich Cabinet furnished with
Yarietie of Excellent Discriptions, 1616. " Eamiliarity breeds contempt, and
contempt breaks the neck of obedience," Cap of Grey Hairs for a Green Head.
" Sir, there is an old adage that says, Eamiliarity breeds Contempt," Bury Eair,
1689. " The proverb is true, Too much familiarity breeds contempt; 1 think 'tis
high time to part," Vice Reclaim'd, 1703.
" Certainly, the editors in their sagacity have murdered a jest here. It is
designed, no doubt, that Slender should say decrease, instead of increase; and
dissolved and dissolutely, instead of resolved and resolutely: but to make him say,
on the present occasion, that upon familiarity will grow more content, instead of
contempt, is disarming the sentiment of all its salt and humour, and disappointing
the audience of a reasonable cause for laughter." — Theobald. " Theobald's
conjecture may be supported by the same intentional blunder in Love's Labom^'s
Lost : — Sir, the contempts thereof are as touching me." — Steevens.
That I am freely dissolved, and dissolutely.
The same blunder is introduced by Heywood into his Eair Maid of the West,
or a Girle worth Gold, 4to. Lond. 1631, — Bes. But did he fight it bravely? —
Clem. I assure you, mistresse, most dissolutely."
NOTES TO THE EIEST ACT.
.301
For all you are my man.
It appears from this that it was formerly the custom for persons to T)c attended
by their own servants, when they dined from home. The practice is still occasion-
ally found to prevail in England, especially at public dinners.
" I found them such devout Christians for all they were drunkards." — The
Infernal Wanderer, 1702, a folio pamphlet.
Flaying at sicord and dagger.
The accompanying engraving of persons engaging in a duel armed with swords
and daggers, is taken from a black-
letter ballad in my possession, en-
titledi"A Looking- Glasse for Maids,
or the Downfall of two desperate
Lovers, Henry Hartlove and William
Martin, both lately living in the Isle
of AVight, who, for the love of Anne
Scarborow, a beautifuU virgin, she
having first made herself sure to
one of -them, and afterwards fel off
to the other, chaleng'd the field,
where, after a cruel fight, they
were both mortally wounded, and
were found dead upon the place by
the afore-mentioned maiden, who bestowed many tears upon their bodies, buried
them both in one grave," &c.
TFitJi a master offence.
A fencing master, a master in the " noble science" of defence. A fence-school
is mentioned by Decker, in the Gull's Hornbook, 1G09. " Tliey have in the citie
certayne maisters of fence, that teach them how to use the swoord," Eden's History
of Travayle, 1577, ap. Douce. The phrase seems to be used by Eden merely in
the sense above named.
'''Master of defence, on this occasion, does not simply mean a professor of the
art of fencing, but a person who had taken his master s degree in it. I learn from
one of the Sloanian MSS., 2530, which seems to be the fragment of a register
formerly belonging to some of our schools where the Noble Science of Defence
was taught, from the year 1568 to 1583, that in this art there are three degrees,
viz. a master s, a provost's and a scholar's. For each of these a prize is played, as
exercises are kept in universities for similar purposes. The weapons they used
were the axe, the pike, rapier, and target, rapier and cloke, two swords, the two-
hand sword, the bastard sword, the dagger and staflP, the sword and buckler, the
rapier and dagger, &c. The places where they exercised were commonly theatres,
halls, or other enclosures sufficient to contain a number of spectators, as Ealy-
Place, in Holborn ; the Bell Savage, Ludgate-Hill ; the Curtain in HoUywell ; the
Gray Eriars, within New^gate ; Hampton Court ; the Bull in Bishopsgate-Street ;
the Clink, Duke's-Place, Salisbury-Court; Bridewell; the Artillery-Garden, &c.
Among those who distinguished themselves in this sc-ence, I find Tarlton the
comedian, who "was allowed a master" the 23d of October, 1587 [I suppose,
either as grand compounder, or mandamus], he being "ordinary grome of her
majesties chamber," and Robert Greene, who " plaide his maister's prize at
Leadenhall with three weapons," &c. The book from which these extracts are
made, is a singular curiosity, as it contains the oaths, customs, regulations, prizes,
summonses, &c. of this once fashionable society. K. Henry VIII., K. Edward VI.,
302
NOTES TO THE EIllST ACT.
riiilij) and Mary, and Qncen Elizabeth, were frequent spectators of their skill
an (.1 act iv ity . ' ' — iShrrcHS.
21ie Order for pluy'uige of a Maisters Prize. — When anny provost is mynded
to take the degree of a master, that is, to play a maister's priz, he shall first
declare his niynd mito his master under whom he playd his provostes priz, yf he be
livinge, and yf he be ded, then shall he chuse for his maister one of the four
ancient maisters to play his priz, under whom he liketh best, and shall be sworne
imto him, as he was to his first maister. And then shall he desycr his maister's
fax or for the playinge of his sayd maister's priz, and so to crave the good will of
all the ancient maisters of the noble scienc of defenc; and accordinge as the
ancient maisters do agree in that cause, he to precede in his sayd priz ; So that he
M ill be content to agree unto them, and to all their orders and ruilles, accordinge as
they have emongste tliem, and never survince or invent by anny kynd of meanes to
j)ut anny maister of that noble scienc to anny displeasure or hinderanc, but shall
be contented to fulfill all their constitucions, orders and ruilles, to the uttermost of
his power; And shall byend himselfe in anobligacion to the iiij. ancient masters for
performanc therof. And so doinge, the sayd maisters shall appoynct him his day,
wheare he shall play his maisters priz at theis weapons followinge, vidz : the two
hand sword, the basterd sword, the pike, the backe sword, and the rapier and
dagger. And then the sayd provost to gev warninge to so many maisters as dwell
within xl. myles of the place appoyncted for his priz, eight weekes at the lest,
before the day commeth to play his priz. And when he hath playd his maisters
priz, he then to mak his maisters lettre, and pay for the sealling of it to thancient
maisters, witli all manner duetys to them belonging, and so to byend himselfe in
an obligacion to the sayd ancient maisters to fulfill all that is above-sayd, and to
set his hand and seall thearunto. Those done, the four ancient maisters to gev
him his maisters othe, with all thinges that apperteyneth to the same. — MS.
Shane 2530, fol. 20.
*° Three reneys for a dish of steiced prunes.
Veneys, hits in the body; a term at fencing. A dish of stewed prunes was to
be paid by the person who received three veneys. The wager was a common one.
Porter, in the Villain, 1663, mentions a game at bowls played " for stew'd-prunes
and ginger-bread," p. 20. ''Tocco, a venie at fence, a hit," Florio's Worlde of
AVordes, 1598. "^Yhose two hand sword, at every veny, slent," Du Bartas.
" Thou wouldst be loth to play half a dozen venies at wasters for a broken head,"
Philaster. ''Venie, a touch in the body at playing with weapons," Bullokar.
I hope, sir, your worship hath not forgot Harry Crack, the fencer, for forfits,
and vennyes given, upoji a wager, at the ninth button of your doublet, thirty
crowns. — The Famous Historye of Captaine Thomas Stuheley, 1605.
Such a dust was raised, that no man was able to see the skye before him,
resounding as it did with horrible cries and shouts : which was the reason that the
casting-weapons discliarged everie way missed not, but where ever they fell, gave a
deadly stroke, and did mischiefe, because their venues could neither be fore-seene
nor avoided. — Ammiamis Ilarcellinus, ed. Holland, 1609.
This was a passe ; 'twas fencers play; and, for the after venny, let me use my
skill. — The History of the Two Maids of More-clacle, 1609.
1 Lait'. Women, look to't, the fencer gives you a veney. — 2 Law. Believe it,
he hits home. — Swetnam, the Woman-hater, 1620.
And on his head he layes him on such load
With two quick vennies of his knotty goad,
And with the third, thrusts him between the eyes,
That down he falls, shaking his heels, and dies. — Bu Bartas.
NOTES TO THE EIEST ACT.
303
Fre. A pleasant fellow, sir, and one of the noble science ; for, look you, sir,
there's a venie. — Bay. O swoons ! he has stab'd me. — The Ttco Merry
Milkmaids, 1661.
And at any prize, whether it be maister's prize, &c., whosoever doth play
agaynste the prizer, and doth strike his blowe and close with all, so that the
prizer cannot strike his blowe after agayne, shall wynne no game for any veneye so
given, althoughe it shold breake the prizer's head. — MS. Slomie 2530.
^° / have seen Sacherson loose.
Sackerson was the name of a celebrated bear in Shakespeare's time, probably
so caUed from the surname of his keeper. In the Epigrams attributed to Sir
JohnDavies, 12mo., said to have been printed in 1598, there is an amusing account
of a student leaving his legal studies for the sake of amusements similar to those
mentioned by Slender, —
Publius, student at the common law.
Oft leaves his bookes, and for his recreation
To Parish-garden doth himselfe withdrawe,
"Where he is ravisht with such delectation,
As downe amongst the beares and dogges he goes ;
Where, whilst he skipping cries. Head to head !
His satten doublet and his velvet hose
Are all with spittle from above be-spread.
When he is like his father's country hall
Stinking with dogges, and muted all with haukes ;
And rightly too on him this filth doth fall.
Which for such filthy sports his bookes forsakes, —
Leaving old Ployden, Dyer, and Brooke alone.
To see old Harry Hunkes and Sacarson.
The last lines of this epigram are thus given in an early copy preserved in
MS. Harl. 1836,—
And rightly doth such filth upon him fall.
That for such filthy sports his booke forsakes.
And leaves old Ploydon, Dyer, and Brooke alone,
To see old Harye, Hunkes, and Sakerstone.
lie be sworne they tooke away a mastie dogge of mine by commission. Now
1 thinke on't, makes my teares stand in my eyes with greefe. I had rather lost
the dearest friend that ever I lay withal in my life. Be this light, never stir if
hee fought not with great Sekerson foure hours to one, foremoste take up hind-
moste, and tooke so many loaves from him, that hee sterv'd him presently. So, at
last, the dogg cood doe no more then a beare cood doe, and the beare being heavie
with hunger you know, fell uppon the dogge, broke his backe, and the dogge never
stird more. — Sir Gyles Goosecappe Knight, a Comedie presented by the Chil: of the
Chap pell, 1606.
The escape of a bear from his chain was sometimes attended with great
danger. Machyn records in his Diary for 1554, — " The sam day at after-non
was a bere-beytyn on the Bankesyde, and ther the grett blynd here broke losse,
and in ronnyng away he chakt a servyng man by the calff" of the lege, and bytt
a gret pesse away, and after by the hokyll-bone, tiiat with-in iij days after he ded."
Est et alius postea locus theatri quoque formam habens, ursorum et taurorum
venationibus destinatus, qui a postica parte alligati, a magnis illis canibus et
molossis Anglicis, quos linqua vernacula dochen appellant, mire exagitantur ; ita
304
NOTES TO THE EIKST ACT.
tiuut'ii lit sfppe canes isti ab iirsis vel tauris, dentibus arrcpti, vel cornibus impetiti,
de vita periclitari, alicpiando ctiam aniniani exlialare solcant, quibus sic vcl sauciis
vel lassis statim subslituuntur alii rcccntcs et magis alacres. Accedit aliquando
in fine hujiis spectaculi ursi plane exca3cati flagellatio, ubi quinque vel sex, in
circulo constituli, ursum ilagellis niisere excipiunt, qui licet alligatus aufugere
nequeat, alacriter tamen se defendit, circumstantes, et nimium appropinquantes,
nisi recte et provide sibi caveant, prosternit ac flagella e manibiis cicdentium eripit
atque confringit, — Fauli Ilentzneri Itinerarium, 12mo. Noriberg. 1629, pp. 196-7.
It pass d.
That is, it passed all expression, it exceeded all description. " I passe, I
excede," Palsgrave, 1530. ''Ewceder, to exceed, passe, goe beyond," Cotgrave.
" To excell, to passe, to surmount," Baret's Alvearie, 1580. " How in colour they
exceU the emeralds, every one striving to passe his fellow," Sidney's Ar(;adia.
" Every one that confer with me now, stop their nose in merriment, and swear
I smell somewhat of Horace ; one calls me Horace's ape ; another, Horace's
beagle ; and such poetical names, it passes," Untrussing of the Humorous Poet.
" I have such a deal of substance here, when Brian's men are slaine, that it
passeth," Sir Clyomon, 1599. "This passeth, that I meet with none, but thus
they vexe me with strange speeches," Menaechmi, 1595. " Your travellers so dote
upon me, as passes," Lingua, 1607.
Come follow me, you country lasses.
And you shall see such sport as passes.
Beaumont and Fletcher, ed. Dyce, ix. 226.
And the peace of God, which passeth aU understanding, shall preserve your
hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. — Philippians, iv. 7.
I am sorry to trouble you with the discomfortable dealings of our treasurer
here ; 1 assure you it passeth, and our auditor a foole in comparison to mete with
there subtelties. — Letter of the Earl of Leicester, 1586.
Or his laundry.
Sir Hugh means to say his launder. Thus, in Sidney's Arcadia, b. i. p. 44,
edit. 1633 : " not only will make him an Amazon, but a launder, a spinner,"
&c. — Steevens.
His washer, and his wringer.
Wringer, the person who wrings the clothes, or squeezes the water out of them.
The word is of unusual occurrence.
Her course in compasse round and endlesse still.
Much like a horse that labours in a mill ;
To shew more plaine how shee her worke doth frame.
Our linnen's foule e'r shee doth wash the same :
Prom washing further in her course she marches,
She wrings, she folds, she pleits, she smoothes, she starches.
Taylors JForkes, fol Lond. 1630.
That altogether' s acqttaintance.
The old copy reads — altogethers acquaintance ; but should not this be "that
altogether s acqvLamtance," i. e. that is altogether acquainted? The English, I
apprehend, would stiU be bad enough for Evans. — Tyrwhitt.
There's pipins and cheese to come.
A very customary conclusion of dinner, the fruit and cheese being placed on
the table at the same time. Apples and cheese were often eaten together. In
NOTES TO THE EIEST ACT.
305
the account of a marriage entertainment in 1526, there are noticed, "apples and
cheese strewed with sugar and sage." Decker alludes to the former custom in his
Gul's Hornbook, 1609, — " By this time the parings of fruit and cheese are in the
voyder;" and Melton, in his Astrologaster, 1620, — "and, which is better than a
piece of cheese, pippins, or carroways, to close up the mouth of the stomach after
supper, they were all welcome."
Eor capons, rabbits, pigs, and geese,
Eor apples, caraways, and cheese. {Grace at dinner.)
How a Man may Chuse a Good Wife, 1602.
Contentions, emulations, and debate,
These furnish forth his table in great state.
And then for picking-meat, or daintie bits,
The second course is actions, cases, writs :
Long suits from terme to terme, and fines and fees,
At the last cast comes in for fruit and cheese.
Taylors Worles, fol. Lond. 1630.
What says my hully-rooh?
A cant term, jocularly applied to any person who was rather a free-liver. In
later times, it was a title conferred on a cheat and a sharper ; but it probably had
a less offensive meaning in Shakespeare's day. Some editors read hully-roch,
another form of the word. " Let's to the taverne, and inflame ourselves with lusty
wine; sucke in the spirit of sacke till wee bee Delphicke, andprophecie, my bully-
rooke," Shirley's Wittie Eaire One, 1633. "Be serious; what, what do we fight
for ? — Eor pay, for pay, my bull-roohs,'' Honoria and Mammon, 1659. " Bully,
or bully-rock, faux hrave,'' Miege. "And diviUishly are they us'd, when they
meddle with a guard- man, or any of the Boidley Bochs indeed," Eeign'd
Astrologer, 1668. " He, poor soul, must be hector'd till he likes 'em, while the
more stubborn bully-rock damms, and is safe," Shadwell's Sullen Lovers, 1668.
The term occurs several times in this play, pp. 12, 60, &c. "Do you mutiny, ye
rogues, against Bully Bocks," Miser, 1672, p. 72. " The bully-rook makes it his
bubbhng-pond, where he angles for fops," Character of a CoflFee-House, 1673,
p. 6. "Come, my bully-rock, away, We do wast this drinking-day," Mock Songs,
1675, p. 6. " Upon honour, in a short time not a Bully Bock of 'em all can
come near thee for gallantry," Madam Eickle, or the Witty Ealse One, 1677.
" Left thee ! what, before thou wert drunk, Bully-Bock," Sir Barnaby Whigg,
1681, p. 3. Sir John Bullyrock, the name of a person introduced into the
Eoyalist, 1682, p. 48. " Hectors, bully-rocks, and gulls," Canidia or the
Witches, ]683. "Who are the bully-rocks," Bellamira, 1687. "Here fops and
boistrous bully-rocks are shown," Gallantry All-a-Mode, n. d. " Some to Bully-
Eocks, of which latter sort our fiddler-stealers are," Master Anthony, 1690.
" Hectors, pimps, shuffle-board gamsters, nine-pin players, bully-rocks, bully-
ruffins," Boor llobin's Almanack, 1693. " Say'st thou so, Bully-Bock," She
Gallants, 1696. " I'll do it, and will it spend afterwards upon thee in what
liquor thou lik'st, Bully Bock," Durfey's Campaigners, 1698. It would almost
seem, from some of these examples, that the term was specially applied, in certain
cases, to any boon companion. In some verses in the Compleat Gamester, 8vo.
1721, the word, spelt hidly-rooJc, is used for a sharper. Under this latter form, it
is merely a compound of bully, and of rooh, a knave. "A crafty cogging knave,
a rook," Howell's Lex. Tet. 1660, sect. 22. It would also appear from a passage
in Eeign'd Eriendship, an old play not dated, that the term rock was likewise used in
a similar sense.
II. 39
30G
NOTES TO THE EIRST ACT.
Your city blades arc cunning- roohes^
IIow rarely you collogue him !
Sougs of the London Prentices, p. 91.
Thus will I pluck his feathers till he's bare,
Till he confess he for my smiles pays dear ;
And when I've drain'd him till he can no more,
Then hiilhj-roch shall kick him out o' th' door.
A New Academy, Lond. 1G99, p. G7.
And all things ready for adjournment, then
Stood up one of the Northern country-men,
A boon good fellow, and a lover of strong ale,
Whose tongue well steep'd in sack began this tale ;
My Bully llochs, I've been experienced long
In most of liquors that is counted strong :
Of Claret, AVhite-wine, and Canary-Sack,
Eenish and Malago, I've had no lack. — Yorhsliire Ale, IG97.
The alderman has Betty Erouze,
And Bully Boch his lawful spouse.
JEsoj) at Riclimond, 1698, p. 7.
While the more needy Bully Bock
Ventures his sise at Royal-Oak ;
He minds the motion of the ball,
Yet, gamester like, he loses all. — Ibid., p. 18.
/ sit at ten pounds a weeJc.
And, last of al, frequent the ordinaries, which you have in a manner enriched,
and marke how they will moane their own mischances, how they sit at an un-
merciful rent; what losses they have susteined by pilfering. — The Man in the
Moone telling strange Fortunes, 1G09.
Ccesar, Reiser, and Pheazar.
Reiser, an old term for an emperor, not a corruption of Casar, as stated in
Dyce's ed. of Beaum. and Elet. vi. 143. " Es there any kyde knyghte, kaysere
or other," Morte Artliure, Lincoln MS. A.-S. cdsere, Caesar, an emperor.
"Constantin ant Maxence weren on a time as in Reiseres stude behest in Home,"
MS. Cott. Titus D. xviii. of the thirteenth century. "Caysere ne knyjth," Sir
Degrevant, 1528. " To be kaiser or kyng of the kyngdom of Juda," Piers
Ploughman, p. 404. "Kings and Kesars" is a phrase used several times by
Spenser : — " Whilst Rings and Resars at her feet did them prostrate The
captive hearts of Rings and Resars. . . . This is the state of Resars and of Rings.
.... Mighty Rings and Resars into thraldom brought Ne Resar spared he
a whit nor Rings.'' In Queen Elizabeth's Book of Prayers is an engraving of
Death seizing a king, and underneath is the following couplet, —
Keisar or king,
I must thee bring.
The term Reisar was in frequent use in Shakespeare's time, but it had began
to be occasionally employed in burlesque writing, or in comedy. " Tell me o' no
queen or keysar," Tale of a Tub. It may be worthy of remark that the word is
also a surname, the names of Cayser, Casiar, and Kaysar, being found in the
parish register of Byarsh, co. Kent. According to Malone, Pheazar was a made
word from pheeze; but it seems more probable that it is merely a ludicrous rhyme
to the other two words.
NOTES TO THE FIllST ACT.
307
Payre fell good Orpheus, that would rather be
King of a mole hill, then a Keysars slave :
Better it is mongst fidlers to be chiefe,
Then at plaiers trencher beg reliefe.
TJie Meturnefrom Pernassus, 4to. Lond. 160G.
The lord, the lowne, the caitifPe and the Keasar,
A beggers death as much contentment brings
To thee, as did the fall of Julius Caesar. — Taylor's Worhes, 1630.
Nay, that's certain ; the King's but a man, as we three are ; No more is the
Queen, if you go to that : Did you never hear of my uncle's observations ? he's
but a poor knave (as they call him), but such a knave as cares neither for King
nor Kmsar, the least on um. — The Marriage Nighty 1664.
Said I tcell, hilly Hector ?
" Said 1 well " appears to have been a favorite phrase with innkeepers, the
host in Chaucer being also introduced as using it. Hector, and Hector of Greece,
were two cant terms applied to sharpers, and to quarrelsome drunken persons.
The following verses, " On a Hector beaten and draged away by the Constable,"
occur in Flecknoe's Epigrams, 1670, —
Still to be drag'd ! still to beaten thus !
Hector, I fear thy name is ominous ;
And thou for fighting didst but ill provide.
To take thy name thus from the beaten side ;
To have watchmen still like band of Mirmidons,
Beat thee witli Halbards down, and break thy boans ?
^° Let me see tliee froth, and live.
So the first folio. The quarto reads froth and lime, in allusion to deceptions
practised with beer and sack ; but the ordinary meaning of the word froth, in the
text, will make sense, if the reading of the folio be adopted. On the other hand,
it is possible that the Host may allude to Bardolph's dexterity in frothing. There
is a curious old black-letter ballad, entitled, — " Nick and Eroth, or the Good-
fellows' Complaint for want of full measure, discovering the deceits and abuses of
victuallers, tapsters, ale-drapers, and all the rest of the Society of Drunkard-
makers, by filling their drink in false flaggons, pimping tankerds, cans call'd
ticklers, rabbits, jugs, and short quarterns, to the grand abuse of the Society of
Good Eellowship :" —
But now we'l show you a trick, you knaves,
And lay you all open to view :
It's all for your froth and your nick, you slaves.
And tell you no more then is true.
If in a cold morning we chance to come,
And bid a good morrow, my host.
And call for some ale, you will bring us black-pots,
Yet scarce will afford us a toast.
Eor those that drink beer, 'tis true as i'me here,
Your counterfeit fiaggons you have,
Which holds not a quart, scarce by a third part,
And that makes my hostis go brave.
But now pimping tankerds are all in use,
Which drains a man's pocket in brief,
Eor he that sits close, and takes of his dose,
Will find that the tankerd's a thief.
30S
NOTES TO THE EIllST ACT.
Bee 't tnnkcvd or Hai^g-on, M'liicli of lliein you brag on,
AVc'l trust } ()U to nick and to froth ;
Before we can drink, be sure it will slu-ink
Ear worser then North country cloth.
You, Tom Tapster, that tap your small cans of beere to the poore, and yet fill
them halfe full of froth. — Greene, 1G20, ap. Dyce.
There was a tapster, that with his pots smalnesse, and with frothing of his
drinke, had got a good summe of money together. This nicking of the pots he
would never leave, yet divers times he had been under the hand of authority, but
wliat money soever hee had [to pay] for his abuses, liee would be sure [as they all
doe] to get it out of the poore mans pot againe. — Life of llohin Goodfelloic, 1G28.
Our pots were full quarted,
We were not thus thwarted
With froth-canne and nick-pot.
And such nimble quick shot. — Elyuour Mummynge, ed.l624*.
Tapst. This way, Mistris. I smell the reward of a knaves office : howsoever
sinne thrives by AA'ickednesse. Froth-fdV d cans and over-reckonings will hardly
raise a stock to set up with. Now will I informe the gallants. — Totenham
Court, 1638.
Erom the nick and froth of a penny pot-house,
Erom the fidle and cross, and a great Scotch-louse,
Erom committees that chop up a man like a mouse. — Fletcher s Poems, p. 133.
To Jieep a tapster from frothing his pots. — Provide in areadiness the skin of a
red-herring, and when the tapster is absent, do but rub a little on the inside of his
pots, and he will not be able to froth them, do what he can in a good while after.
— Cotgraves Wits Interpreter, 1671, p. 92.
®^ A withered servingman, a fresh tapster.
Perhaps, says Steevens, a parody on the old proverb, "A broken apothecary a
new doctour," Kay's Proverbs, ed. 1678, p. 2.
0 hase Hungarian idght!
So the folios read, the quartos having Oongarian. According to Steevens,
this is the parody of a line in an old play, — " O base Gongarian, wilt thou the
distaff wield ?" — but the title of the play in which this line occurs (?) has not been
discovered. Hungarian, a cant term, applied m contempt to a hungry fellow, to
one who has no visible means of subsistence, is peculiarly appropriate, Avhen
referred to Bardolpli; but the word was often used as one merely of disdain.
" Thou art more slovenlie than an Hungarian scollion," Elorio's Second Erutes,
1591. The Host, in the Merry Devil of Edmonton, 1608, calls his hungry guests
Hungarians ; and the term again occurs in the same play, — " Come, ye Hungarian
pilchers."
His hous-keeping was worse then an Irish kernes ; a rat could not commit a
rape upon the paring of a moldy cheese but he died for't, only for my sake ; the
leane jade Hungarian would not lay out a penny pot of sack for himselfe, though
he had eaten stincking fresh herring able to poyson a dog, onely for me, because
his son and heire should drink egges and muskadine, when he lay rotting. —
Dechers Knight's Conjuring, 1607.
Play, you lousy Hungarians : see, look the maypole is set up ; we'll dance about
it: keep this circle, maquerelle. — Westward Hoe, 1607.
NOTES TO THE FIEST ACT.
309
One like to Wolner for a monstrous eater,
Or rather of a glutton somewhat greater,
Invited was unto a gentleman,
Who long'd to see the same hungarian.
And note his feeding : being set to dinner,
A leg of mutton was the first beginner. — Boiolands Four Knaves.
Lett me tell you (what you knowe allready) that bookes are like the Hun-
garians in Paules, who have a priviledge to holde out their Turkish history for anie
one to reade. They beg nothing : the texted past-bord talkes all — and if nothing
be given, nothing is spoken, but God knowes what they thinke ! — Lechers
Dreame, 1620.
The middle ile (St. Paul's) is much frequented at noone with a company of
Hungarians, not walking so nuich for recreation as neede. — Liijjions London and
the Coimtreg Carhonadoed, 12rao. 1633.
Hall, in his Satires, speaks of persons so lean and meagre, that any one " would
sweare they lately came from Hungary." The allusion and quibble are identical.
His mind is not heroic, ^'c.
This passage is taken from the imperfect quarto, and appears to be too good to
be omitted. It may possibly have been accidentally left out by the editors of the
first folio.
I am glad I am so acquit of this tinder-hox.
"A tinder-boxe, with an iron to strike fire," Baret's Alvearie, 1580 ; an
article now nearly out of use, owing to the introduction of lucifers. Ealstaff calls
Bardolph a tinder-box, because his thievery was so open to detection, of so inflam-
mable a character ; as well as in allusion to his red face. The quarto reads
tinder-hog, p. 214, Acquit, freed, released. Acquit, for acquitted, occurs in the
Witty Apothegms, ed. 1669, p. 100.
It may not be irrelevant to add a few words in explanation of the insertion of
notices of such common terms as that of tinder-box. The reader will perhaps bear
in mind that it is often the first question in respect to a disputed passage,
especially where the old editions differ, whether any particidar word was in use in
the time of Shakespeare. Thus, in the present instance, the quarto having
tinder-hog, there might arise critics who would prefer that reading ; and it is, at
all events, an element in the discussion of the question to be assured that the
lection of the first folio may be supported by instances of the use of the term in
contemporary writers.
The good humour is, to steal at a minute's rest.
"'Tis true (says Nym) Bardolph did not keep time; did not steal at the
critical and exact season, when he would probably be least observed. The true
method is, to steal just at the instant when watchfulness is off its guard, and
reposes hut for a moment."" The reading proposed by Langton {mininis) certainly
corresponds more exactly with the preceding speech ; but Shakespeare scarcely
ever pursues his metaphors far. — Malone.
Convey the wise it call.
" I dare warante you it is nat stollen, it is but convayed asyde," Palsgrave, 1530.
So, in the old morality of Hycke Scorner, ap. Steevens,
Syr, the horesons could not convaye clene ;
Eor an they could have carried by craft as I can.
In Two Notable Sermons, preached before the Queen's Hignes, by T. Watson,
310
NOTES TO THE FIRST ACT.
D.l)., im])rintcd in the yerc 1551*, we are told that it is sacrilcdge "to steal and
coiirey the vestures about the aultare."
Is any trades-man light-fingered, and lighter-conscienced ; here is whole feast
of fraudes, a table furnished with trickes, conveyances, glossings, perjuries,
cheatings. — Jdanis' DeviUs Banhet, IG14.
" A fico for the phrase!
That is, a fig for it! "■Fica, a figge; a flurt with ones fingers given in
disgrace ; fare le fica, to bid a figge for one," Elorio, ed.l598, p. 130. See further
observations on the phrase in the notes to Henry V.
Well, sirs, I am almost out at heels.
A proverbial phrase applied to a person who is poor, and who may, therefore,
be presumed to be shabbily dressed.
/ must coney-catch; I must shift.
Curre, hadst thou no mans credit to betray
But mine, or couldst thou find no other way,
To sharke, or shift, or cony-catch for mony,
But to make me thy asse, thy foole, thy cony?
Taylors WorJces, fol. Lond. 1630.
''^ Young ravens must have food.
A proverbial phrase, probably adapted from the Scriptures. " 2. Fyr. Then
me ; yet speake the truth, and I will guerdon thee : But if thou dally once againe,
tliou diest. Tucc. Enough of this, boy. — 2. Pyr. Why then lament therefore :
damn'd be thy guts unto king Plutoes heU, and princely Erebus ; for sparrowes
must have foode," Jonson's Poetaster, fol. ed., p. 306. There is a proverb in
Ray, ed. 1678, p. 102, "small birds must have meat;" that is, "children must be
fed, they cannot be maintained with nothing."
'^^ But I am now about no waste.
AVhere am I least, husbande ? quod he, in the wast ;
"Which comth of this, thou art vengeance strait las't :
Wher am 1 biggest, wyfe ? in the uaast, quod shee,
Eor al is waste in you, as far as I see.
Hey wood's First Hundred of Fpigrammes, 1577.
Bel. Hee's a great man, indeed. — Isa. Something given to the wast, for he
lives within no reasonable compasse, I'm sure. — Shirley s Wedding, 1633.
I spy entertainment in her.
The word entertainment is here used in a wanton sense. " To plead
her excuse for deferring her appointed entertainment," Comical History of
Erancion, fol. Lond. 1655.
She discourses, she carves.
It appears, from various passages in old writers, that it was often considered a
mark of kindness and afPection for a lady to carve at table to a gentleman. Thus,
in the old English metrical romance of Sir Degrevant, a lady, in love with a
knight, is thus described as attempting her best to please her lover, —
Sche dyjt to hys sopere
The foules of the ryvere,
Ther was no deyntethus to dere,
Ne spyces to spare.
NOTES TO THE EIEST ACT.
311
The kny3t sat at hys avenaunt,
In a gentyl jesseraunt ;
The mayd mad hym semblaunt,
And hys met schare.
In the present passage, the term carve, in apposition to entertainment, may
be interpreted to imply that Mrs. Eord sliowed a preference to Ealstaff by carving
to him at table; or it may possibly be used in the peculiar sense noticed by Mr.
Hunter, to employ some form of action, " which indicated the desire that the
person to whom it was addressed should be attentive and propitious." The same
writer seems to think this is the meaning intended by Biron, in his character of
Boyet, — "he can carve too, and lisp" — but Boyet's skill in carving at table had
been previously mentioned. On the other hand, Biron appears to use the terui
in a different sense. The passage from Harbert was quoted by Mr. Hunter in
support of the opinion above expressed; but the subject being one of considerable
doubt, the reader must be allowed to draw his own conclusion from the examples
here cited. The 4to. edition of 1630, and some recent critics, read craves, a
reading not likely to belong to Shakespeare. See also interesting observations on
the passage in the text in Mr. Dyce's Eew Notes, pp. 18-21. Mr. Singer considers
the use of the word explained by the following in Torriano — "Trinciarla alia grande,
to carve it magnificently, viz. to spend like a prince ; to lay it on, take it off
who wiU."
In the Comedy of Errors, Adrian a observes to her husband that there was a
time when words were not pleasing to him, nor meat sweet-savoured, "unless I
spake, looked, touched, or carved to thee'"'
Then did this queen her wandering coach ascend.
Whose wheels were more inconstant than the wind :
A mighty troop this empress did attend :
There might you Caius Marius carving find,
And martial Sylla courting Yenus kind.
Harberfs Prophesie of Cadwallader, 1601.
Eaunus for feates of fencing beares the bell,
Eor skill in musick on each instrument :
Eor dancing, carving, and discoursing well.
With other sundry gifts more excellent.
The Mous-trap, Ito. Lond. 1606.
Courtesie in her is the loadstone of her lust: and affabilitie the cunning orator
for her concupiscence : bringeth he any to his table, if she carve to them, it is in
hope of some amorous requitatl; if shee drinke to them, their pledgings are but as
pledges of their concealed loves. — The Man in the Moone telling Strange
Fortunes, 1609.
It's a foule over-sight, that a man of worship cannot keepe a wench in his
house, but there must be muttering and surmising : it was the wisest saying that
my father ever uttered, that a wife was the name of necessitie, not of pleasure : for
what do men marry for, but to stocke their ground, and to have one to looke to the
linnen, sit at the upper end of the table, and carve up a capon. — The Beturne
from Fernassns, 1606.
Desire to eat with her, carve her, drink to her, and stiU among intermingle
your petition of grace and acceptance into her favour. — Two Noble Kinsmen.
Salute him friendly, give him gentle words,
Beturn all courtesies that he affords ;
312
NOTES TO THE EIllST ACT.
Drink to liini, carre him, give liim compliment;
This sliall thy mistress more than thee torment.
Ik'aumont'' s Itemed 1/ of Love, ap. Dyce, xi. 483.
Your husband is wondrous discontented. — Vit. I did nothing to displease
him ; I carved to him at su})per-time. — Fla. You need not have carved him in
faith ; tliey say he is a capon already. — IVehsters JVIiile Divel, 1G12.
And I not melancholy, because I would cover my sadnesse, lest either she
might thinke me to dote, or my father suspect me to desire her. And thus we
])()th in table talke began to rest. She requesting me to be lier carver, and I not
attending well to that she craved, gave her salt. — Euplmes and his Euyland, 1623.
llemember that this life is but as a banquet. If any one carve to thee, take
part of the peece with modesty, and return the rest : is the dish set from thee ?
stay it not : is it not yet come to thee ? gape not after it, but expect it with sober
behaviour. — Epictetus his Mamiall, 1616.
Her lightnesse gets her to swim at top of the table, where her wrie little finger
l)ewraies carving, her neighbours at the latter end know they are welcome, and for
tliat purpose she quencheth her thirst. She travels to and among, and so becomes
a woman of good entertainment, for all the folly in the countrie comes in cleane
linnen to visit her. — The Overhury Characters, ed. 1626.
Her amorous glances are her accusers ; her very looks write sonnets in thy
commendations ; she carves thee at boord, and cannot sleepe for dreaming on thee
in bed ; shee's turn'd sunne-riser, haunts private walkes, and like a disgrac'd
courtier, studies the art of melancholly. — The lie of Gulls, 1633.
At dinner, he durst not let his eye beguile his mouth, nor wander on the
womens side, which made him eat like a mad-man, not minding what he took,
nor how it went downe, and Euphema (as shee was an excellent dissecter of the
creature) carving to him some speciall fowle, the puzled wight gave her his us'd
plate instead of the servant. — Gaytons Festivons Notes on Bon Quixot, 1654.
Now when this lord he did come home
Eor to sit downe and eat ;
He called for his daughter deare.
To come and carve his meat.
The Lady Isabellas Tragedy, a ballad.
Or when she carves, what part of all the meat
She with her finger touch, that cut and eat ;
Or if thou carve to her, or she to thee.
Her hand in taking it touch cunningly.
Ovid de Arte Aniandi, 1677, p. 25.
About a year after his return out of Germany, Dr. Carey was made Bishop of
Exeter ; and by his removal the deanry of St. Paul's being vacant, the king sent
to Dr. Donne, and appointed him to attend him at dinner the next day. AVhen
his majesty was sate down, before he had eat any meat, he said, after his pleasant
manner, Dr. Donne, I have invited you to dinner ; and thougli you sit not down
with me, yet I will carve to you of a dish that I know you love well ; for knowing
you love London, I do therefore make you Dean of Paul's; and when I have
(Uned, then do you take your beloved dish home to your study ; say grace there to
yourself, and much good may it do you. — Walton s Life of Donne.
You carve to all, and eat nothing yourself. Every one take his portion. —
Familiares Colloquendi Formula, 1678.
Entertaining any one, it is decent to serve him at the table, and present him
with meats, yea, even those that are nigh him ; but if one be invited by another.
NOTES TO THE EIIiST ACT.
31.3
it is better to attend until that the master, or others, do carve him meat, than that
he take it himself, were it not that the master intreat him to take it freely, or that
one were in the house of a familiar friend. Also one ought scarce oflFer ones self
as undesLred to serve others out of ones house, where one might have little power,
be it not that the number of the guests were great, and that the master of the
house could not have an eye to all the company ; then one may carve to them,
who are near ones self. — The New Youilis Behaviour, Lond. 1684.
It is grown a rudeness and incivility to pretend to help anybody (how excellent
soever he be at the trade) unless he be requir'd. Besides, it being no hard matter
to carve for any man that has dined but three or four times at a nobleman's table,
it is not absurd for any man, that has no mind to the imployment, to excuse
himself. And, indeed, carving belongs properly to nobody but the master or
mistress of the treat, and those they think fit to desire, who are to deliver what
they cut to the master or mistress, to be distributed by them at their pleasure.
But whoever carves, you must be cautious of oflPering your plate first ; you must
rather stay till it comes to your turn, and excuse yourself if you observe anybody
pass'd by, of more quality than yourself. — The Bides of Civility, 1685.
If you desire to be a waiting-gentlewoman to a person of honour or quality,
you must — 1. Learn to dress well. 2. Preserve well. 3. Write well a legible
hand, good language, and good English. 4. Have some skill in arithmetick.
5. Carve well. — The Ladies Dictionary, 1694.
He hath studied her will, and translated her imll.
So the first folio, the quarto reading, — "He hath studied her well, out of
honestie into English." Translated, explained ; an use of the word occm'ring in
other plays, in Hamlet, Troilus and Cressida, &c. In other words, he has studied
and examined her inclination, and explained it out of honesty into the language of
plain roguery. To speak English was an old phrase meaning, to confess. " Since
Johnson's being in the Tower, he beginneth to s'peah English, and yet he was
never upon the rack, but only by his arms upright," — Letter dated 1605.
" Ealstaff had just been interpreting Mrs. Eord's behaviour into a declaration
in plain English ; on which Pistol observes, that he had translated her out of
honesty into a declaration, amounting to a plain confession, in so many English
words, of her lasciviousness." — Heath.
'^^ The anchor is deep.
That is, the scheme of EalstaflF is deeply and securely laid. "Why, sir, sayd
I, there is a booke called 'Greenes Ghost haunts Cony-catchers,' another called
' Legerdemaine,' and 'the Blacke Dog of Newgate,' but the most wittiest,
elegantest, and eloquentest peece, called ' the Bell-man of London,' have already
set foorth the vices of the time so vively, that it is unpossible the anchor of any
other mans hraine can sound the sea of a more deepe and dreadfuU misclieefe,"
Eennor's Compters Common-Wealth, 1617.
^'^ As many devils entertain.
That is, do you entertain in your service as many devils as she has angels.
Pistol quibbhng here on the latter word ; or the meaning may possibly be, — she
entertains in her service also as many devils ; she is wicked ; and therefore, " To
her, boy," say 1. " Sweet lady, entertain him for your servant," Two Gentlemen of
Verona. The quarto edition reads, — " as many devils attend her," and, in the
previous speech, — " she hath legions of angels." A somewhat similar play upon
words occurs in the Yorkshire Tragedie, 1619, — "the last throw, it made five
hundred angels vanish from my sight." It is worthy of remark that the quarto
31i
NOTES TO THE FIEST ACT.
re))eats the passage, " legions of angels," in another place, where the folio reads,
" masses of money."
Humour me the angels.
Humour also occm-s as a verb in the London Prodigal, — " For all the day he
humours up and down."
'^^ Who even note gave me good eyes too.
AVhereb}' they wryte most honorably of hir majesty, and the duke of Sax geres
much better eye than he did, synce his w}"fes death, and lyke to marry ageyn with
the hows of Hanalt, a great protestant and a great howse. — Letter of the Earl of
Leicester, 1585.
Shee has taken note of my spirit, and smwaid my good parts, and the picture of
them lives in her eie. — The Widdowes Teares, 1013.
''^ With most judicious ege-lids.
" Desire not her beautie in thine heart, neither let her take thee with her eye-
lids," Proverbs, vi. 25, thus glossed in ed. 1G40, "with her wanton looks and
gesture." The first folio reads illiads, which is usually considered as derived from
the French oeillade, translated by Cotgrave, " an amorous looke, aflPectionate
winke, wanton aspect, lustfull jert or passionate cast of the eye ;" but 1 am inclined
to think it a mere corruption of eye-lids.
^" The heam of her view gilded my foot.
An eye more bright than their's, less false in rolling,
Gilding the object whereupon it gazeth. — Sonnets.
Then did the sun on dung -hill shine.
" The sun shineth upon the dung-hill," Lilly's Euphues, 1581.
We have examples for it most divine.
The Sunne upon both good and bad doth shine.
Upon the dunghill and upon the rose :
Upon Gods servants and upon his foes :
The wind, the raine, the earth, all creatures stiU,
Indifferently doe serve both good and ill.
Taylors Worlees, fol. Lond. 1G30.
/ thanh thee for that humour.
The word humour was very fashionable in our author's time, and used in a
variety of ways, applied to every particularity of disposition. A character in Ben
Jonson's Every Man out of his Humour says of another, " Why, this fellow's
discourse were nothing but for the word humour." The reply is in the spirit of
true comedy. "O bear with him;- an he should lack matter and words too,
'twere pitiful."
^■^ With such a greedy intention.
When perchance the heate of the ladies affection makes her take a place of
standing, either against the hanginges or one of the bay windowes, and there with
a greedie eye feedes on my exteryors, which perceiving, I drawe to her, kisse my
hand, and accorst her thus. — Cupid's Whirligig.
Intention, that is, eagerness of desire, fixed or earnest gazing. So, in
Chapman's translation of Homer's Address to the Sun, quoted by Steevens, —
Even to horror bright,
A blaze burns from his golden burgonet ;
Which to behold, exceeds the sharpest set
Of any eye's intention.
NOTES TO THE EIllST ACT.
315
Compare, also, Ben Jonson, —
Like one that looks on ill-affected eyes,
Is hurt with mere intention on their follies.
Princes are great marks, upon whom many eyes are intended. — Ilindes Eliosto
Lihidinoso, 1606.
^ She is a region in Guiana, all gold and hounty.
As early as the year 1569 had been published, "A true Declaration of the
troublesome Voyage (the second) of Mr. John Hawkins to the Parties of Guynea
and the W est Indies." There is generally supposed to be an allusion in the text
to the discoveries of Sir Walter Paleigh in 1595, and to his marvellous accounts
of the gold of Guiana published in his well-known work, — " The Discoverie of the
Large, Rich, and Bewtiful Empyre of Guiana, with a relation of the great and
golden Citie of Manoa, which the Spanyards call El Dorado, and of the Provinces
of Emeria, Arromaia, Amapaia, and other Countries, with their rivers, adjoyning,"
4to. Lond. 1596.
Shall I sir Pandarus of Troy become.
And indeed, many times a hired coachman with a basket-hilted blade hang'd
or executed about his shoulders in a belt (with a cloake of some pide colour, with
two or three change of laces about), may manne a brace or a leash of these
curvetting cockatrices to their places of recreation, and so save them the charge of
maintaining a Sir Pandarus or an apple-squire ; which service, indeed, to speake
the truth, a waterman is altogether unlit for. — Taylor s TForhes, 1630.
Bear you these letters tightly.
Tightly, promptly, quickly. Still in use in the Eastern counties, according
to Eorby, who explains it, promptly, actively, alertly, (A. S. tid-Kce). Good
tightly, in the Suffolk dialect, is briskly, effectually. The earlier English form would
be titely. " By that come tytlye tyrannies tweyne," Chevalere Assigne. " Tightly, I
say, go tightly to your business," Dryden's Don Sebastian. The adjective
tight occurs in Antony and Cleopatra. The quarto of 1630, and the second folio,
read rightly.
Sail like my pinnace to these golden shores.
^ A pinnace was a small sloop or bark attending a larger ship. Metaphors
similar to that in the text are not unusual ; and any pander or go-between, hence
a woman of doubtful character, was termed a pinnace. " Earewell, pink and
pinnace, flyboat and carvel," Hepvood's Edward IV., p. 39. " This small jjinnace
shall sail for gold," Humorous Lieutenant, 1647.
Is your watch ready ? Here my saile beares for you :
Tack toward him, sweet pinnace, wher's your watch ? — Ben Jonson.
Moreover, shee is not like a ship bound for Groneland, which must saile but in
summer, or a pot of ale with a toast, which is onely in winter : no, let the winde
blow where it will, her care is such, that it brings her prize and purchase all
seasons; her pinkes are fraighted, her pinnaces are man'd, her friggots are
rig'd (from the beakhead to the poope) and if any of her vessels be boorded by
pyrats, and shot betwixt winde and water, they are so furnished with engines, &c.
—Taylors Worhes, 1630.
Away, 6' the hoof; seeh shelter, pacJi' !
Away, I say ; hang, starve, beg : be gone, pack, I say ; out of my sight : thou
310
NOTES TO THE EIllST ACT.
ne'er get'st pennyworth of my goods, for this : think on't, I do not use to jest : be
gone, 1 say; 1 will not hear tliee speak. — If'il// JicgiiHed.
Falstaff will learn the humour of the age.
The quartos read, " the liumor of this age ;" and the first folio, " the honor of
the age," honor in the latter instance being undoubtedly a misprint of humor.
Thus, in the quarto of 1002, Nyni says, " niy honor is not for many words,"
instead of, " my humour is not for many words." This misprint is, indeed, common.
Another instance of it may be noted in the Gesta Grayorum, 1688, p. 33.
Nay, 'tis the humour of this age ; they think they shall never be great men,
unlesse they have grosse bodies. — Hey for Honesty ^ Jjoimi ti-ith Knavery, 1051.
90 French thrift, you rogues; myself, and sJcirted page.
By French thrift, Falstaff alludes to the practice, which then had recently
been adopted, of making a richly-dressed page answer the place of a band of
retainers. Ben Jonson deplores the change in one of his plays. " The fashion of
the world is to avoid cost," Much Ado about Nothing.
And howe are coach-makers and coach-men increased, that fiftie yeares agoe
were but fewe in number, but nowe a coach-man and a foot-boy is enough, and
more then every knight is able to keepe. — Rich's Honestie of this Age, 1614.
Let vultures gripe thy guts.
A burlesque on a passage in Tamburlaine, or the Scythian Shepherd :
and now doth ghastly death
With greedy talents gripe my bleeding heart,
And like a harper tyers on my life
Griping our bowels with retorted thoughts.
Compare, also, the Poetaster, quoted at p. 310.
For rather than fierce famine shall prevaile.
To gnaw thy intrailes with her thornie teeth.
The conquering lyonesse shall attend on thee.
The Battell of Alcazar, 1594.
^~ For gourd and fullam hold.
Gourds, fullams, and high and low men, were ancient names for kinds of false
dice. "Provide also a ball or two of fullans, for they have great use at the
hazard : and though they be square outward, yet being within at the corner with
lead or other ponderous matter stopped, minister as great an advantage as any of
the rest ; ye must also be furnished with high men and low men for a mum-chance
and for passage. Yea, and a long die for even and odd is good to strike a small
gtroke withal, for a crown or two, or the price of a dinner : as for gords and bristle
dice, be now too gross a practice to be put in use ; light grausiers there be, demies,
contraries, and of all sorts ; forged clean against the apparent vantage, which have
special and sundry uses," Use of Dice-Playe, n. d. "As for dice, he hath all kind
of sortes, fullams, langrets, bard quater traies, hie men, low men, some stopt with
quicksilver, some with gold, some ground," AYits Miserie and the Worlds
Madnesse, 1596. Ascham, in his Toxophilus, speaking of false dice, says, — "dise
of a vantage, flattes, gourdes to chop and chaunge whan they lyste." Pen
Jonson, in Every Man out of his Humour, quibbles on the term fullam, fol. ed.
p. 129, — " he keepes high men, and low men, he ; he has a faire living at Fullam."
Compare, also, the London Prodigal, — "Item, to my son Mat. Flowerdale, I
bequeath two bale of false dice, videlicet, high men and low men, fulloms, stop-
cater-traies, and other bones of function." In the English Rogue, P. I. p. 322,
NOTES TO THE EIEST ACT.
317
edit, 1G80, we are told that ''high fullums are tlnjse dice which are loaded in such
a manner as seldom to run any other chance than four, five, or six ; loic fulhima,
or low men, are those which usually run one, two, or three." Fulhaiiis, says
Hanmer, " a cant- word for false dice both high and low, taken probably from the
name of the first inventor, or the pLace where they were first made. The word is
used and hath the same sense in Hudibras, Part 2, Cant. i. v. 642 ; and in Don
Quixot, fol. ed. 1687, translated by Phihps, part 2d, book 3d, chap. 16; I am no
Pa/imier, no high-aitd-low-Fulham-man. See also North's Examen, p. 108."
Faith, my Lord, there are more, but I have learned but three sorts ; the goade,
the fulham, and the stop-kater-tre ; which are all demonstratives, for heere they
be. — Chapman 8 Monsieur ly Olive, 1606.
He hath a stocke whereon his living stayes.
And they are fullams and bard-quarter-trayes ;
His langreats, with his hie- men and his low,
Are ready what his pleasure is to throw.
His stopt dice with quick- silver never misse :
He calles for 'come on, five,' and there it is.
The Letting of Humors Blood in the Head Vaine, 1611.
My verses that are like cheaters false dice of high men and low men, one while
eights, now tennes, another while foure teenes, and sometimes sixes. — King' s Half e-
Penni/worth of Wit, 1613.
Weeping, intreating, for her lost lords sinne.
And then Vike fidlomes that run ever in. — Scots Philomythie, 1616.
I call to minde, I heard my Twelve-pence say,
That he hath oft at Christmas beene at play:
At Court, at th'lnnes of Court, and every where
Throughout the kingdome, being farre and neere.
At Passage, and at Mumchance, at In and in,
"Where swearing hath bin counted for no sinne.
Where Eullam high and Low-men bore great sway.
With the quicke helpe of a Bard Cater Trey. — Ihglors TForkes, IGSO.
Hear. I may shew you the vertue of 't, though not the thing ; 1 love my
country very weU. Your high and lotv men are but trifles ; your poyz'd dye
that's ballasted with quicksilver or gold is grosse to this, — Carftorighfs Or-
dinary, 1651.
Did not I (if you are yet cool enough to hear truth) teach you your top, your
palm, and your slur? — Shew'd you the mystery of your Jack in a Box, and the
frail dye? — Taught you the use of up-hills, down-hills, and petarrs? — The waxt,
the grav'd, the slipt, the goad, the fuUam, the flat, the bristle, the bar; and,
generally, instructed you from prick-penny to long-Lawrence ? And is the question
now. Who is beholding? — The Cheats, 166-1.
The bully-rook makes it his bubbling pond, where he angles for fops, singles
out his man, insinuates an acquaintance, ofi'ers the wine, and at next tavern sets
ui)on him with high fullams, and plucks him. — The Character of a Coffee-House,
icith the Symptoms of Town- Wit, 1673, p. 6.
Now a Scotchman's tongue runs high Fullams. There is a cheat in his idiom ;
for the sence ebbs from the bold expression, like the citizen's gallon, which the
drawer interprets but half a pint, — Cleveland's Works, 1687.
These gentlemen pretend to be much upon the mathematicks too ; and, tliat all
things are carried extraordinary fairly and squarely among them, as well as at the
318
NOTES TO THE ElllST ACT.
0 room Porter's ; but, by their leave, I have seen th.eir niatheinatical (hits, and
bars ; nay (I'or a need) uiatheniatical Eulhims too ; and abundance that will run
n\athenuitieally hii>-h or low: these are a sort of false dice, that are cut and
staiu'd so exactl\- like the true, and Avithal mark'd with the same mark, that 'tis
morally im])()ssible for a stranger, that does not sus])ect the cheat, to discover it ;
and these the box-keeper has conunonly in a readiness, when he has the sign
given him, to put in ; or if he has them not of his own, there's those about him
that never go without them. — The Country-Gentleman 8 Vatic Mecum, 1699.
Sico. Give nu^ some bales of dice. What are these? — Som. Those are called
High EuUoms. — Clo. lie Eidlom you for this. — Som. Those low Eulloms. — C. They
may chance bring you as hie as the gallowes. . . . Clo. Nay, look you heere ; lieare's
one that, for his bones, is pretily stuft. TIeare's fulloms and gourds : heere's tall-
men and low-men ; heere tray duce ace ; passedge comes apace. — Nobody and Some-
body, with the I me Chronicle Historic of Ely d arc, n. d. Again, in the Bellman of
London, by Decker, otli edit. IGiO : among the false dice are enumerated, " a bale
oi' f/illams. — A bale of yordes, Avith as many hiyh-men as loio-mcn for passage."
— Steevens. Gourds were probably dice in which a secret cavity had been made ;
fnllams, those which had been loaded with a small bit of lead. Iliyh men and loio
men, which were likewise cant terms, explain themselves. Hiyh numbers on the dice,
at hazard, are from five to twelve, inclusive ; lov), from aces to four. — Malone.
This they do by false dice, as higli-fullams, 4, 5, 6 ; Low-fullams, 1, 2, 3 ; by
bristle dice, which are fitted for their purpose by sticking a hogs bristle so in the
corners, or otherwise in the dice, that they shall run high or low as they please ;
this bristle must be strong and short, by which means the bristle bending, it wiU
not lie on that side, but will be tript over ; and this is the newest way of making
a high or low Fullam : the old ways are by drilling them and loading them with
quicksilver ; but that cheat may be easily discovered by their weight, or holding-
two corners between your forefinger and thumb, if holding them so gently between
your fingers they turn, you may then conclude them false ; or you may try their
falshood otherwise by breaking or splitting them : others have made them by
filing and rounding ; but all these ways fall short of the art of those who make
them : some whereof are so admirably skilful in making a bale of dice to run
what you would have them, that your gamesters think they never give enough
for their purchase, if they prove right. They are sold in many places about
the town ; price current (by the help of a friend) eight shillings, whereas an
ordinary bale is sold for sixpence ; for my part I shall tell you plainly, I would
have those bales of false dice to be sold at the price of the ears of such destructive
knaves that made them. — The Complete Gamester, 1G80.
"And thy dry bones can reach at nothing now but gords or nine-pins," —
Beaumont and Fletcher, ed. Dyce, iii. 81. "Pise, false dice, high men or low
men," Elorio's Worlde of AYordes, 1598 ; to which Torriano adds, " high fullams
and low^ fullams." They are again mentioned in the Art of Jugling or Legerde-
maine, 4to. 1614, — "what should I speake any more of false dice, of fullomes, high
men, low men, gourds, and brisled dice, graviers, demies, and contraries, all which
have their sundry uses."
Pist. Nay, 1 use not to go wdthout a paire of false dice ; heere are tall men and
little men. — Jalio. Hie men and low men, thou wouldst say. — The Tragedie of
Solirnon and Perseda, 1599.
There is an allusion, to the passage in the text, in Clifford's Notes upon Mr.
Dryden's Poems in Eour Letters, 4to. Lond. 1687:— "1 remember just such
another fuming Achilles in Shakespear, one Ancient Pistol, whom he avows to be
a man of so fiery a temper, and so impatient of an injury, even from Sir John
Ealstaff his Captain, and a Knight, that he not onely disobeyed his commands
NOTES TO THE FIIIST ACT.
319
about carrying a letter to Mrs. Page, but return'd liiin an answer as full of
contumely, and in as opprobrious terms as he could imagine : — ' Let vultures gripe
thy guts, for gourd and Eullam holds,' &c. Let's see e'er an Abencerrago lly
a higher pitch."
/ toill discuss the humour of this love to Page.
The names of Page and Eord, in this and the next line, are accidentally
reversed in the first folio. The true readings are found in the early quarto
editions. In a speech of Nym's, just previously, the quartos read, " I have opera-
tions in my head."
/ will incense Page.
Incense, i. e. instigate. " He incenseth their heartes with an exceeding desire
of warre, hellandi furore corda extimulat,''' Baret, 1580. "To incense, incendere;
vi. to move, to provoke, to instigate," Minsheu. Cf. Henry VIII.
/ ivill possess him loith yellowness.
Telloimess, that is, jealousy. " Flora did paint her yellow for her jealousy,"
Arraignment of Paris, 1584, ap. Steevens. " If you have me, you must not put on
yellows," Day's Law Tricks, 1608, ib. The quarto reads jallo tees.
Vice hath infected you, 'gainst vertues force.
With more diseases tlien an aged horse ;
Por some of you are hide-bound greedily.
Some have the yellowes of false jelousie ;
Some with the staggers, cannot stand upright.
Some blind with bribes, can see to doe no right.
Some foundred, that to Church they cannot goe.
Broke-winded some, corrupted breath doth blow.
Taylors WorJces, fol. Lond. IG30.
Leaving these, to Staveley came I,
Where now all night drinking am I ;
Always frolick, free from yellows.
With a consort of good fellows ;
Where I '11 stay, and end my journey.
Till brave Barnaby return-a. — Drunken Barnahy.
Then I warrant thee, if I buss pretty Lucie Parker, thou wilt be yellow of my
heart. — Familiar Epistles of Col. Martin, 1685.
The married man cannot do so :
If he be merrie and toy with any.
His wife will frowne and words give manye :
Her yellow hose she strait wiU put on. — Bitsons Old Songs, p. 112.
The revolt of mien is dangerous.
The change of countenance is dangerous ; it will make Page formidable also.
The first folio has mine, the old spelling of mien. " He is an alchymist by his
mine, and hath multiplied all to mooneshine, it est alqnemiste a sa mine, et a tout
mnltiplie en rien," Eliot's Pruits for the French, 1593. The old reading, in its
literal sense, may possibly stand, supported by Pistol's declaration, — "Thou art the
Mars of malcontents."
Here %cill he an old abusing.
An old, that is, a plentiful, an abundant, a famous. The term is still in use in
this sense in Warwickshire. See examples in the notes to Henry IV.
320
NOTES TO THE EIllST ACT.
Nor no hreed-hate.
Breed-hate, that is, a breeder of strife or contention. " This bate-breeding spy,"
Yenu3 and Adonis. Elorio transhites biUta fiioco, " a boutcfeu, an incendiarie, a
fire-flinger, a mahe-bate" the hist term also occurring in Stanyhurst's Virgil, 1582,
and in Ileywood's Woman Kilde with Kindnesse, 1607.
Something peevish that way.
Peevish, that is, foolish. "Albemare kept a man-fool of some forty years old
in his house, who, indeed, was so naturally peevish, as not Milan, hardly Italy,
could match him for simplicity," — God's Eevenge Against Adultery. Malone,
however, thinks it is here one of Mrs. Quickly 's blunders for precise. Either ex-
planation is probable.
She spake no more, but from her chair she started,
And spit these words, Go, peevish girl, — and parted.
Quarles' Argalus and Farthenia, 1647, p. 36.
Ay, for fault of a better.
A common proverbial phrase. " Crisp. She i' the little velvet cap, sir, is my
mistres. — Albius. Eor fault of a better, sir," — Ben Jonson's Poetaster, 1602.
Does he not wear a great round beard.
" Then comes he (the barber) out with his fustian eloquence, and
making a low conge, saith. Sir, will you have
your worship's cut after the Italien manner,
short and round, and then frounst with the curling
yron, to make it look like a half-moon in a mist,"
Greene's Quip for an Upstart Courtier, 1592.
Harrison, in his Description of England, p. 172,
speaks of beards "made round like a rubbing-brush,"
of which description is the one in the subjoined en-
graving, selected by Mr. Eairholt from a portrait,
temp. Elizabeth. It is stated in Copley's Wits,
Eits, and Fancies, 1614, that "a large and a broade
beard betokens a foole," which may possibly be the
reason of Simple's anxiety to relieve his master from the imputation of having one.
Like a glover s paring-hiife.
The annexed engraving of a glover's knife is taken from
a tradesman's-token of the seventeenth century. A beard of
that form would evidently be "a great round beard."
A little wee face.
Wee, very small, diminutive. Still in common use in
familiar language. " Wee-bit, a pure Yorkshirism, which is
a small bit in the Northern language," Ray's English
Proverbs, ed. 1678, p. 338. " Some two miles, and a wee bit,
sir," Doctor Dodypoll, 1600. "A little wee man," Eair Maid of the West, 1631.
A Cain-coloured beard.
So, in other old plays, Abraham-coloured and Judas-coloured beards are
mentioned, in allusion, it is presumed, to the beards of those personages as they
were represented in tapestries. Some critics would read, with the quarto, cane-
coloured beards, beards of the colour of cane, a sickly yellow, and one writer
suggests cream-coloured. See further on the subject of coloured beards in the
notes to A Midsummer Night's Dream.
NOTES TO TEE EIEST ACT.
321
As tall a man of Ms hands.
See observations on this phrase in the notes to the Winter's Tale. Simple
does the best for his master. He is a soft-spirited man, says Mrs. Quickly. He
is indeed meek, observes Simple, but he is as brave a man as can be found
anywhere : he once even fought with a warrener.
And down, doimi, adoimi-a.
To deceive her master, she sings, as if at her work. — Sir J. Hawkins. This
appears to have been the burden of some song then well known. In Every Woman
in her Humour, 1G09, sign. E 1, one of the characters says, " Hey good boies !
i'faith now a three man's song, or the old dowtie adowne : well, things must be as
they may; fil's the other quart : muskadine with an egg is fine ; there's a time for
all things ; bonos nochios." — Reed. Cf. Eitson's Antient Songs, 1790, p. 134.
Come, goe with me. He shew you where he dwels,
Or somebody; I know not who it is ;
Here, looke, looke here, here is a way goes downe,
Doicne, doione a downe, hey downe, downe ;
I sung that song, while Lodowicke slept with me.
The Tragedy of Hoffman, 4to. Lond. 1631.
Or like the foursquare circle of a ring.
Or like the singing of Hey down a dmg;
Even such is man, who breathles, without doubt,
Spake to smal purpose when his tongue was out.
Witts Recreations, 12mo. Lond. 1654.
Enter Doctor Cains.
In addition to what has been previously said respecting the devotion of the real
Doctor Caius to unlawful studies, another diagram from the very (jurious manu-
script, cited at p. 258,
may be here introduced
as a further illustration
of the same subject.
An original letter of
Dr. Caius is preserved
in MS. Coll. C. C.
Cantab. 114, p. 815 ;
and there is a curious
wood-cut portrait of
him, in his forty-third
year, in the edition of
his works printed at
Louvain in 1556, at
the reverse of the list
of contents following
the title-page. There
is another picture of
him, as introduced on
the stage, in the fron-
tispiece to some copies
of the Wits or Sport upon Sport, 1662. Steevens, on the other hand, considers it
possible that Shakespeare's character of Dr. Caius may have been drawn from some
foreign doctor at Windsor, and he refers to the following curious anecdote in
' Jacke of Dover his Quest of Inquirie, or his Privy Search, for the veriest Poole in
n. 41
323
NOTES TO THE EIExST ACT.
England,' Loiul. IGOl*, — "Upon a tlnio, tlicrc was in AVinsor (quotli another of
the jurie,) a certaine simple outlandish doctor of ])hisicke, belonging- to the Deane,
who on a day being at dinner in Eton Colledgc, in a pleasant humor asked of
Maister Deane what strange matter of worth he had in the colledgc, that he might
see, and make report of when he came into his own countrey? whereupon tiie
deane called for a boy out of the scliolc, of some six yeeres of age ; who, being
brought before him, used this speach : M. ])octor, quoth he, this is the onely
wonder that I have, which you shall quickly find, if you will aske him any
question : whereupon the D. calling the boy to him, said these words, — My pretty
boy (quoth he), what is it that men so admire in thee? My understanding, quotli
the boy, AVliy, sayd the Doctor, what dost thou understand? I un(lerstand
myselfe, said the boy, for I know myselfe to be a childe. Why, quotli the Doctor,
couldest thou thinke that thou wert a man ? Not so easely, M. Doctor, answered
the boy, as to thinke that a man may be a child. As how, sayd the Doctor ? By
this, quoth the boy; for I have heard that an old man decayed in wit, is a kind
of child, or rather a foole. With that the Doctor, casting a frowning smile upon
the boy, used these words : Truly, thou art a rare childe for thy wit, but I doubt
thou wilt proove like a sommer apple ; soone ripe, soone rotten : thou art so full
of wit now, that I feare thou wilt have little when thou art old. Like enough,
sayd the boy; but will you give me leave to shew my opinion upon your wordes ?
Yes, my good wag (sayd he.) Then, M. Doctor, quoth the boy, I gather by your
words, that you had a good wit when you were young. The Doctor, biting his lip,
went his way, very much displeased at the boyes witty reasons, thinking himselfe
ever after to be a foole. Well, quoth Jacke of Dover, this, in my minde, was
pretty foolery, but yet the foole of al fooles is not here found, that I look for."
Foreign physicians were much esteemed in England in Queen Elizabeth's time.
A character in the Heturn from Parnassus, 1G06, says, "We'll gull the world that
hath in estimation forraine phisitians." " Now shall you heare how findly Master
Doctor can play the outlandish man," Mariage of Witt and Wisdome, There are
some very severe remarks on Eoreign physicians practising in England in Arceus
onAYoundes, translated byEead, 4to, Lond. 1588; but perhaps the most curious,
in connexion with the present subject, is the following account of a quack doctor,
pretending to speak broken English, in the Hye AY ay to the Spyttell Hous, printed
by R. Copland, early, but without a date, —
Somtyme in maner of a physycyan,
And another tyme as a liethen man,
Countrefaytyng theyr owne tongue, and speche.
And hath a knave that doth hym Englysh teche,
With, " me non spek Englys by my fayt ;
My servaunt spek you what me sayt" —
And maketh a maner of straunge countenaunce,
With admyracyons his falsnes to avaunce ;
And whan he cometh there as he wold be.
Than wyll he feyne merveylous gra\7te ;
And so chaunceth his hostes or his boost.
To demaund out of what straunge land, or coost,
Cometh this gentylman ? " Eorsothe, hostesse,
This man was borne in hethennesse,"
Saj-th his servaunt, " and is a connyng man,
Eor all the seven scyences surely he can ;
And is sure in physyk, and palmestry,
In augury, sothsayeng, and vysenamy;
NOTES TO THE EIEST ACT.
323
So that he can ryght soone espy
If ony be dysposed to malady,
And therfore, can gyve suche a medycyne,
That maketh all accesses to declyne :
But surely yf it were knowen that he
Shold medle with ony infyrrayte
Of comyn people, he myght gete hym hate,
And lose the favour of every great estate ;
Howbeit, of charyte, yet now and then,
He wyll mynyster his cure on pore men.
No money he taketh, but all for Gods love,
Which by chauuce ye shall se hym prove."
Than sayth he, "Qui speke my hostesse,
Graund malady make a gret excesse ;
Dys infant rumpre ung grand postum.
By got he ala mort tuk under thum."
*' In the Three Ladies of London, 1584, is the character of an Italian merchant,
very strongly marked by foreign pronunciation. Dr. Dodypoll, in the comedy
which bears his name, is, like Caius, a Erench physician. The hero of it speaks
such another jargon as the antagonist of Sir Hugh, and like him is cheated of his
mistress. In several other pieces, more ancient than the earliest of Shakspeare's,
provincial characters are introduced." — Steevens, "In the old play of Henry the
Eifth, Erench soldiers are introduced, speaking broken English." — Boswell. Erench
doctors were long common subjects for satire. Gayton puts the following absurd
speech into the mouth of one of them, as an illustration that medicine is not alike
to all constitutions : — " If te body be full of grosse humours, and that it operates
excessively, all de better for dat ; and if the physick doe not stirre the patient, 'tis
a good signe that de grosse humours are not in te body, and so all te better for
dat too."
The character of Dr. Caius deserves a few observations. He is suspicious,
vain, absurd, credulous, and irascible ; but, besides this, it has been said that his
humour is solely drawn from the contrarieties of language. This latter censure
will, I am persuaded, be found on examination to be in some degree erroneous ;
but it has been accepted as a sound opinion, and is therefore deserving of con-
sideration. Dr. Caius maintains, if not as distinctly as usual, certainly in a great
degree, the individuality of character which it is so wonderfully the province of
Shakespeare to preserve in his ever-varying pages ; and it is curious to perceive
how critics are led to erroneous conclusions by the observation of characteristics
common to individuals of every profession, not sufficiently observing how the
author may diversify their operations. Let us examine this subject a little in
detail. — The Doctor's peevishness is apparent at his introduction on the scene, in
his dislike to Mistress Quickly's hilarity, and in the impatience with whicli he
utters his commands. He soon appears as a suspicious wit, — 'You are John
Eugby, and you are Jack Eogue-by,' a quibble readily appreciated in Shakespeare's
time, when compounds of that character, like rudeshy and roguesbij, were in familiar
use. His suspicion and credulity are nearly correspondent, and render in high
colours the admirable tact displayed by Mrs. Quickly in diverting her master from
the right object, after the apparently unanswerable reply to her assurance that
Simple is an honest man, — ' Vat shall the honest man do in my closet ? Dere is
no honest man dat shall come in my closet.' Almost immediately afterwards, his
jealousy is alarmed by Quickly's attempt to stop Simple's narration ; but he is,
nevertheless, the complete dupe of his domestic. There is an amusing grandilo-
NOTES TO THE EIllST ACT.
([uoiice in the Doctor's re])ly to llugby, when tlie latter remarks that Sir Hugh
was not punctual to his ai)i)ointuient, — ' By gar, lie has save his soul dat he is no
come : he has pray his Piblc veil, dat he is no come : by gar. Jack Rugby, he is dead
already, if he be come.' Again, recalling the question alluded to above, a great
(k'al more than erring hununir is to be traced when Caius tells the host of his mis-
Ibrtunes ' for good vill ;' for, presuming the words themselves to be mere errors
arising from his imperfect knowledge of the language, the point of the satire is
readily distinguished. This is, of itself, sufficient to raise some hesitation in
regarding Caius as a mere grammatical blunderer. — The Doctor's opinion of
himself is in the highest degree favorable. Erora the moment when he says he
will cut Sir Hugh's throat ' in de park,' to the end of the drama, — ' Be gar, I '11
raise all AVindsor,' — his estimation of self-importance is continually betraying
itself. Nor is his impetuosity less remarkable ; and in the first edition of the play.
Simple is made to say, — ' O God, what a furious man is this !' Tliis agrees with
Mrs. Quickly's opinion of him in Act i, scene 4, — ' If he find anybody in the
house, here will be an old abusing of God's patience and the King's English :'
and again, — ' if he had been thoroughly moved, you should have heard him so
loud and so melancholy,' as she says with her customary disregard to the exact
significance of the terms she employs. Adding to this trait his vanity, his firm
belief in the love of Anne Page, and his easy credulity, his character as exhibited
by Shakespeare is sufficiently particularised. We close the drama with a smile,
observing few things in the Doctor to be commended, none deserving of serious
reproach, many more of laughter, and perhaps a few meriting the allowances to be
made, even in a fiction, for a foreigner, whose ignorance of the language constitutes
a fertile and constant object of ridicule.
The MS. by Dr. Caius is written chiefly in Latin. It contains, inter alia,
caracteres honorum spiritimm, caracteres malorum spiritiiuni, de experimentis, de
invocatione spiritimm, de malo spiritti,, Eptameron sen elementa magica, pro puero
illuminando, pro speculo, &c. Another extract may be worth giving : —
Of the principall callinge of spirites, is to conjure the winde, the light, and
ayer. — I conjure the winde the ayer the light by Jesus Christ whiche is holye, and
withe his holye and most vertuous blessinge whiche liathe made and bye his holye
vertew that he walked on the seae with.
To (jett a famylier. — Goe to a man or woman or child when theye lye in
departinge and saye this followinge in there yeare ^ I charge the N. whether
thowe heist spirituall or temporall that when thou doist depart this world that thou
doist never rest, nether in fyer water or erthe or ayer stocke nor stone nor in any
kinde of spotted place that ever God made, ordeyned or created, Thorowe the
power and vertue of God the Eather, God the Son, God the Holye Ghost, »|<
three persons and one God in Trynetie, that thou dost com awaye to me in spede,
and grawnt me my request, or els I commaund the bye the power and vertue of
ouer Lord Jhesu Christ, whiche is the everlastinge God, into the pett of Hell,
where is wepinge and waylinge and gnashinge of tethe. And thou slialt never be
out of everlastinge payne, and thoushalt never be partaker of Christeis passion, but
the blud of Jhesu Christ shall be unto everlastinge damnation, if thou do not com
to me and graunt me my request.
Un boitier verd.
Verd, green, was a familiar word to English ears. "Alsoe all the pieces of
hangings of verd that now hang in my chamber and in the parlour." — -Test. Vetust.,
p. 453. The hoitier verd is, in the quarto, " my oyntment ;" and Miege has boitier,
" a surgeon's case of oyntments." The box of simples in the closet was a different
article, remembered by the doctor afterwards.
NOTES TO THE FIRST ACT.
325
^'^^ Dejjeche, quickly.
Is Dr. Caius here quibbling on the name of Quickly ?
A)id you are Jack Bogohj.
I adopt the method of spelling, Bogohj, from another speech in the first
quarto. The doctor seems to intend a pun on his name ; otherwise, the speech
is almost unmeaning.
Come, tahe-a your rapier.
" It was the custom, in Shakespeare's time, for physicians to be attended by
their servants when visiting their patients. This appears from the second part of
Stubs's Anatomic of Abuses, where, speaking of physicians, he says, ' for now they
ruffle it out in silckes and velvets, with their men attending upon them, whereas
many a poor man (God wot) smarteth for it." Servants also carried their masters'
rapiers. — 'Yf a man can place a dysh, fyll a boule, and carrie his maister's rapier,
what more is or can be required at his handes?' — Markham's Health to the
Gentlemanly Profession of a Serving-man." — Douce.
Dere is no honest man, S,'c.
This is, of course, a blunder of the doctor's at his own expense, and implies
he could not be an honest man.
Indeed, la.
" The faces of a phantastick stage-monkey, nor the indeade-la of a Puritanical
citizen," Decker's Wonderful! Yeare, 1603. " No, indeed, indeed, and indeed, la,
I wiU not," Brome's Northern Lasse.
In very deed la, and sinceritie.
There is much Charitie in Charitie. — Taylors Worhes, 1630.
For she will sweare indeed la, and in truth :
That Sim was ever a sweet natur'd youth. — Ibid.
Til neer put my jinger in the fire, and need 7iot.
"Prudens in ignem injecit manum : hee puts his fmger into the fire wilfully,"
Withals' Dictionary, ed. 1634, p. 575. "To put one's finger i' th' fire: prudens
in flammam ne manuni injicito, Hieron., put not your finger needlesly into the fire;
meddle not with a quarrel voluntarily, wherein you need not be concern'd," Ray's
English Proverbs, ed. 1678, p. 244.
Nodimi in scirpo quaris; you would find a fault were none is : thou
art scrupulous and needes not; you are curious about naught. — Terence in
English, 4to. Lond. 1614.
Baillez me some paper.
The original reads hallow. " I suppose the editors have thought this a
designed corruption of the English, for borrow me, &c.; but, as Dr. Caius is a
Erenchman, and generally speaks half French, half English, I am persuaded the
poet meant it should be, baillez moi some paper : i. e. fetch, bring meT — Theobald's
Letters.
Til do for your master what good T can.
The word for, misprinted yoe in the first folio and in ed. 1630, but corrected
in the second folio, is generally omitted by modern editors.
Dress meat and drinh.
" Dr. Warburton thought the word drinh ought to be expunged ; but by drinh
Dame Quickly might have intended potage and soup, of which her master may be
supposed to have been as fond as the rest of his countrymen," Malone.
326
NOTES TO THE EIllST ACT.
Are you avis' d o' that?
A fomiliar phrase, equivalent to, — Have you found out that ? Has it struck
you ? You may be quite sure of it. It is what may be termed an expletive
phrase, and is of common occurrence.
0. Art. Yes, if a man do well consider her, your daughter is the wonder
of her sex.
0. Lks. Are you advis'd of that? I cannot tell what 'tis you call the wonder
of her sex, but she is, is she, aye, indeed, she is. — Hoid a Man may Chuse a good
Wife from a Bad, 1G02.
Hip. And in good earnest wee are not fatherd much amisse. Viol. Are
you avisd of that ? and, ifaith, tell me what thinke you of your servant Dorus. —
Bays He of Gulls, 1633.
You shall have An fools-head of your own.
An seems to be here a very poor quibble on the name of Anne Page. An,
and ane, were also broad pronunciations of one. Mrs. Gallipot, in the Eoaring
Girle, 1611, says, — " Handle a fool's head of your own ; fih ! fih !"
An honest maid as ever Irohe Iread.
Her brother was GameweU, of great Gamewell-haU,
A noble house-keeper was he.
Ay, as ever hrohe bread in sweet Nottinghamshire,
And a squu-e of famous degree.
Bohin Hood and Clorinda.
We had an hour's talh of that wart.
The creses here are excellent good ; the proportion of the chin good ; the little
aptnes of it to sticke out, good ; and the wart above it most exceeding good.
Never trust me, if all things bee not answerable to the prediction of a most divine
fortune towards her, now ; if shee have the grace to apprehend it in the nicke
ther's all. — Sir Gyles Goosecappe Knight, 1606.
She is given too much to allicholly.
Steevens cites this as an example of the inconsistency of the first folio,
Mrs. Quickly having previously used the word melancholy "without the least
corruption of it." Certainly without the least corruption ; but it has been
overlooked that, when she employs the term melancholy, she blunders, meaning to
use some other word.
■^^^ Out upon H! what have I forgot?
According to Steevens, this is too near Dr. Caius's, "Od's me! qu'ay j'oublie?",
in a former part of the scene. It should, however, be recollected that one of the
commonest traits of character, in a servant, is the tendency to imitate the
phraseology of the master.
SCENE I. — A street near Page's House.
E}iter Mistress Page, icith a Letter.
Mrs. Page. What! have I scaped love-letters in the holyday
time of my beauty, and am I now a subject for them? Let me
see : [Reads.
Ask me no reason why I love you ; for tliough Love use Eeason for his
precisian,^ he admits him not for his counsellor : You are not young, no more am
I ; go to then, there 's sympathy : you are merry, so am I ; Ha ! ha ! then there 's
more sympatliy : you love sack, and so do I ; Would you desire better sympathy ?
Let it suffice thee, mistress Page, (at the least, if the love of a soldier can suffice,)
that I love thee. I will not say, pity me, 't is not a soldier-like phrase ; but I say,
love me. By me,
Thine own true knight,
By day or night,^
Or any kind of light,
With all his might,
Tor thee to fight. John Falstaff.
What a Herod of Jewry is this! — O wicked, wicked world! —
one that is well nigh worn to pieces with age, to show himself
a young gallant! What an un weighed behaviour hath this
Flemish drunkard^ picked (with the devil's name) out of my con-
versation, that he dares in this manner assay me? Why, he hath
not been thrice in my company! — What should I say to him? —
I was then frugal of my mirth: — Heaven forgive me! Why, I '11
exhibit a bill in the Parliament for the putting down of men.*
How shall I be revenged on him? for revenged I will be, as sure
as his guts are made of puddings/
328
THE MEIUIY WIVES OE WINDSOll. [act ii. sc. i.
Enter Mistress Ford.
Mrs. Ford. Mistress Page! trust me, I was going to your
house?
Mrs. Paf/e. And, trust me, I was coming to you. You look
very ill.
Mrs. Ford. Nay, I '11 ne'er believe that; 1 have to show to
the contrary.
3Irs. Page. 'Faith, but you do, in my mind.
Mrs. Ford. Well, I do, then: yet, I say, I could show you to
the contrary: O, mistress Page, give me some counsel!
3frs. P(tge. What's the matter, woman?
Mrs. Ford. O woman, if it were not for one trifling respect, I
could come to such honour!
3Irs. Page. Hang the trifle, woman ; take the honour. What
is it? — dispense with trifles; — what is it?
Mrs. Ford. If I would but go to hell for an eternal moment
or so, I could be knighted.
Mrs. Parje. What? thou liest! — Sir Alice Ford!' These knights
will hack;^ and so thou sliouldst not alter the article of thy
gentry.
Mi's. Ford. We burn daylight: — here, read, read: — perceive
how I might be knighted. — I shall think the worse of fat men,
as long as I have an eye to make difference of men's liking: And
yet he would not swear; praised women's modesty; and gave
such orderly and well-behaved reproof to all uncomeliness,
that I would have sworn his disposition would have gone to the
truth of his words: but they do no more adhere and keep place'^
together, than the Hundredth Psalm to the tune of Green Sleeves.
What tempest, I troAV, threw this whale,^ with so many tuns of
oil in his belly, ashore at Windsor? How shall I be revenged on
him? I think the best way were to entertain him with hope, till
the wicked fire of lust have melted him in his own grease. ^° —
Did you ever hear the like?
31 rs. Pmje. Letter for letter; but that the name of Page and
Ford differs! — To thy great comfort in this mystery of ill
opinions, here's the twin-brother of thy letter: but let thine
inherit first; for, I protest, mine never shall. I warrant he
hath a thousand of these letters, writ with blank space^^ for
different names, (sure more,) and these are of the second edition.
He will print them out of doubt; for he cares not what he puts
into the press/* when he would put us two. I had rather be a
ACT n. sc. I.] THE MEEEY WIVES OE WINDSOR.
329
o^iantess, and lie under mount Pelion.^^ Well, I will find you
twenty lascivious turtles, ere one chaste man.
Mrs. Ford. Why, this is the very same; the very hand, the
very words: What doth he think of us?
Mrs. FiHje. Nay, I know not: It makes me almost ready to
wrangle with mine own honesty. I '11 entertain myself like one
that I am not acquainted withal; for, sure, unless he know some
strain in me, that I know not myself, he would never have
hoarded me in this fury.
Mrs. Ford. Boarding, call you it? I '11 be sure to keep him
above deck.
Mrs. Pac/e. So will I; if he come under my hatches,^*' I '11 never
to sea again. Let's be revenged on him: let's appoint him a
meeting; give him a show of comfort in his suit; and lead him
on, with a fine baited delay, till he hath pawned his horses to
mine host of the Garter.
Mrs. Ford. Nay, I will consent to act any villainy^^ against
him, that may not sully the chariness^^ of our honesty. O, that
my husband"^ saw this letter! it would give eternal food
to his jealousy.
Mrs. Paye. Why, look, where he comes; and my good man
too; he's as far from jealousy as I am from giving him cause;
and that, I hope, is an unmeasurable distance.
Mrs. Ford. You are the happier Avoman.
Mrs. Page. Let's consult together against this greasy knight:
Come hither. [Tfiey retire.
Enter Ford, Pistol, Page, and Nym.
Ford. Well, I hope it be not so."*^
Pist. Hope is a curtail"^ dog in some afikirs:
Sir John afiects thy wife.
Ford. A¥hy, sir, my wife is not young.
Pist. He woos both high and low, both rich and poor,^^
Both young and old, one with another; Ford,
He loves the gally-mawfry;"^ Ford, perpend.
Ford. liove my wife?
Pist. With liver burning hot: Prevent, or go thou
Like Sir Act^eon he, with Ringwood at thy heels :'^ —
O, odious is the name I
Ford. What name, sir?
Pist. The horn, I say: Farewell.^^
Take heed; have open eye; for thieves do foot by night:
330
THE MEllllY WIVES OE AVINDSOK [act ii. sc. t.
Take heed, ere suiumer comes, or euckoo birds do sing.'" —
Away, sir corporal Nyiii. —
[To Page.] Believe it, Page; he s})eaks sense." [EuC'lt Pistol.
Ford. I Avillbe patient; I will tind out this. [Aside.
Xi/m. And this is true; [fo Page.] I like not the humour of
lying. lie hath wronged me in some humours: I should
have horne the humoured letter to her; but I have a sword, and
it shall bite upon my neeessity.'" lie loves your wife; there's
the short juid the long. My name is corporal Nym; I speak,
and I avoueli. 'Tis true: — my name is Nym, and Falstaff loves
your wife. — Adieu! I love not the humour of bread and cheese,
and there's the humour of it.~" Adieu ! [Eoclt Nym.
Pof/e. "The humour of it," quoth 'a! here's a fellow frights
English out of his wits.^°
Ford. I will seek out Falstaff. [Aside.
Pacje. I never heard such a drawling, affecting rogue.
Ford. If I do find it, well!
Page. I will not believe such a Cataian,^^ though the priest o'
the town commended him for a true man.
Ford. 'T was a good sensible fellow:" Well. [Aside.
Pacje. \\o\\ now, Meg?
Mrs. Page. Whither go you, George? — llark you.
Mrs. Ford. How now, sweet Frank? why art thou melan-
choly?
Ford. I melancholy! I am not melancholy. — Get you home,
go.
Mrs. Ford. 'Faith, thou hast some crotchets in thy head now.
— Will you go, mistress Page?
Mrs. P(t(je. Have with you. — You '11 come to dinner, George?
Look, who comes yonder: she shall be our messenger to this
paltry knight. [Aside to Mrs. Ford.
Filter Mistress Quickly.
Mrs. Ford. Trust me, I thought on her: she '11 fit it.
Mrs. Page. You are come to see my daughter Anne?^*
Quick. Ay, forsooth. And I pray, how does good mistress
Anne?
3Irs. Page. Go in with us, and see; we have an hour's talk
with you. [Exeunt Mrs Page, Mrs. Ford, rmi/ Mrs. Quickly.
Page. How now, master Ford?
F'ord. You heard what this knave told me; did you not?
Page. Yes : and you heard what the other told me?
ACT II. SC. I.] THE MEERY WIVES OE WINDSOR.
S31
Ford. Do you think there is truth in them?
Page. Hang 'em, slaves; I do not think the knight would
offer it: hut these that aceuse him in his intent towards our
wives, are a yoke of his disearded men A^ery rogues, now they
be out of service?
Ford. AVere they his men!
Page. Marry were they.
Ford. I like it never the better for that. — Does he lie at the
Garter?
Page. Ay, marry, does he. If he should intend this voyage
towards my wife, I would turn her loose to him; and what
he gets more of her than sharp words, let it lie on my head.
Ford. I do not misdoubt my wife; but I would be loath to
turn them together: A man may be too confident: I would have
nothing lie on my head:^" I cannot be thus satisfied.
Page. Look, where my ranting host of the Garter comes:
there is either liquor in his pate, or money in his purse, when he
looks so merrily. — How now, mine host?
Enter Host, Shallow, and Slender.
Host. How now, bully-rook? thou 'rt a gentleman: Cavalero-
justice, I say!
Shal. I follow, mine host, I follow. — Good even and twenty,^'
good master Page! Master Page, will you go with us? we have
sport in hand.
Host. Tell him, cavalero-justice:^^ tell him, bully-rook.
Shal. Sir, there is a fray to be fought between sir Hugh, the
Welsh priest, and Caius, the French doctor.
Ford. Good mine host o' the Garter, a word with you.
Host. What say'st thou, my bully -rook? V^f^^U ffo aside.
Shal. W^ill you [to Page] go with us to behold it? My merry
host hath had the measuring^' of their weapons; and, I think,
hath appointed them contrary places; for, believe me, I hear
the parson is no jester. Hark; Iwill tcUyouwhat our sport shall be.
Host. \_To Ford.] Hast thou no suit against my knight, my
guest-cavalier?
Ford. None, I protest :*° but I'll give you a pottle of burnt
sack" to give me recourse to him, and tell him my name is
Brook :*^ only for a jest.
Host. My hand, bully: thou shalt have egress and regress;
said I well? and thy name shall be Brook: It is a merry knight.
W^ill you go, myn-heers?^^
333
THE MEUUY WIVES OF WINDSOE. [act ii. sc. it.
S/hiI. TIjivo with you, mine host.*''
Pftffe. I have heard the Frenehmari hath good skill in his
rapier.
S/iffL Tut, sir, I eould have told you more: In these times
you stand on distanee, your passes, stoceadoes, and I know not
what: 't is the heart, master Page; 't is here, 't is here. I have
seen the time, with my long sw^ord,^' I w^ould have made you four
tall fellows skip like rats.
Host. Here, hoys, here, here! shall we wag?
Page. Have with you: — I had rather hear them seold than
fight. [Exeunt Host, Shallow, Slender, and Page.
Fonl. Though Page be a seeure fool, and stands so firmly on
his wife's frailty,'" yet I eannot put off my opinion so easily:
She was in his eompany at Page's house; and what they made
there,*' 1 know not. Well, I will look further into 't: and I have
a disguise to sound Falstaff. If I find her honest, I lose not my
labour; if she be otherwise, 't is labour well bestowed. [Exit.
SCENE II. — A Room in the Garter Inn.
Enter Falstaff and Pistol.
Fal. I will not lend thee a penny.
Pist. Why, then the world's mine oyster,*^
Which I Vs '\t\\ sword will open.
I will retoi t the sum in equipage.*^
Fal. Not a penny. I have been content, sir, you should lay
my countenance to pawn : I have grated upon my good friends
for three reprieves for you and your coach-fellow, Nym ; or else
you had looked through the grate, like a gemini of baboons. I
am damned in hell for swearing to gentlemen, my friends, you
were good soldiers and tall fellow^s:'^ andwhenlNIistress Bridget lost
the handle of her fan,'^"I took't upon mine honour thou hadstitnot.
Pist. Didst not thou share? liadst thou not fifteen-pence ?
Fal. Reason, you rogue, reason: Think'st thou I'll endanger
my soul gratis ? At a w ord, hang no more about me ; I am no
gibbet for you: — go. — A short knife and a throng!"' — to your
manor of Pickt-hatch,^^ go. — You '11 not bear a letter for me,
you rogue! — You stand upon your honour! — AVhy, thou uncon-
finable baseness, it is as much as I can do to keep the terms of
my honour precise. I, I, I myself, sometimes, leaving the fear
of Heaven on the left hand, and hiding mine honour in my
ACT II. SC. II.] THE MEURY WIVES OE WINDSOR.
333
necessity, am fain to shuffle, to hedge, and to kirch; and yet you,
rogue, will ensconce your rags,^' your cat-a-mountain looks,'"
your red-lattice phrases, and your bold-beating oaths,^*^ under
the shelter of your honour! You will not do it, you?
Pist. I do relent.^" What would thou more of man?
Enter Robin.
Roh. Sir, here 's a woman would speak with you.
Fal. Let her approach.
Enter Mistress Quickly.
Quick. Give your worship good morrow.
Fal. Good morrow, good wife.
Quick. Not so, an 't please your worship.
Fal. Good maid, then."''
Quick. I '11 be sworn;
As my mother was, the first hour I was born.
Fal. I do believe the swearer: What with me?
Quick. Shall I vouchsafe your worship a word or two ?
Fal. Two thousand, fair woman : and I'll vouchsafe thee the
hearing.
Quick. There is one mistress Ford, sir; — I pray, come a little
nearer this ways: — I myself dwell with master doctor Cains.
Fal. Well, on: Mistress Ford, you say, —
Quick. Your worship says very true: I pray your worship,
come a little nearer this ways.
Fal. I warrant thee, nobody hears; — mine own people, mine
own people.
Quick. Are they so? Heaven bless them, and make them his
servants!
Fal. Well: Mistress Ford; — what of her?
Quick. Why, sir, she 's a good creature. Lord, I^ord! your
worship 's a Avanton: Well, Heaven forgive you, and all of us,
I pray.
Fal. Mistress Ford; — come, mistress Ford, —
Quick. Marry, this is the short and the long of it; you have
brought her into such a canaries,*'^ as 't is wonderful. The best
courtier of them all, when the court lay at Windsor, could never have
brought her to such a canary. Yet there has been knights, and
lords, and gentlemen, with their coaches; I warrant you, coach
after coach, °' letter after letter, gift after gift; smelling so sweetly
(all musk), and so rusliling, I warrant you, in silk and gold ; and
THE MEllIlY WIVES OE WINDSOR, [act ii. sc. ir-
in such alli*;ant terms -/'^ {iiul in such wine and sugar of tlie best
and the fairest, tliat would have won any woman's lieart; and,
1 Avarrant you, they eould never <>'et an eye-wink of her. — I had
myseh'tAventy an<>:els ^-iven me this morning-; but I defy all juigels,
(in anv such sort, as they say,) l)ut in the way of honesty : — and, I
warrant you, they eould never get her so mueh as sip on a cup with
the proudest of them all : and yet there has been earls, nay, which
is more, pensioners; but, I warrant you, all is one with her.
Fal. But what says she to me.^ be brief, my good she-
Merc ury.
Quick. ^larry, she hath received your letter; for the Avhich she
thanks you a thousand times: and she gives you to notify, that
her husband will be absence from his house between ten and
eleven.
Fa J. Ten and eleven?
Quick. Ay, forsooth; and then you may come and see the
picture, she says, that you wot of; master Ford, her husband,
will be from home. Alas! the sweet woman leads an ill life
with him ; he 's a very jealousy man : she leads a very franipokF^
life with him, good lieart.
F(tl. Ten and eleven: Woman, commend me to her; I will
not fail her.
Quick. Why, you say well: But I ha^e another messenger to
your worship: Mistress Page hath her hearty commendations'" to
you too; — and let me tell you in your ear, she's as fartuous a
civil modest wife, and one (I tell you) that will not miss you
morning nor evening prayer, as any is in Windsor, whoe'er be
the other: and she bade me tell your worship that her husband
is seldom from home; but, she hopes, there will come a time.
I never knew a woman so dote upon a man; surely, I think
you have charms,'^^" la; yes, in truth.
Fal. TSot I, I assure thee; setting the attraction of my good
parts aside, I have no other charms.
Quick. Blessing on your heart for 't!
Fal. But, I pray thee, tell me this: has Ford's wife and Page's
wife acquainted each other hoAv they love me?
Quick. That were a jest, indeed! ' — they have not so little
grace, I hope: — that were a trick, indeed! But mistress Page
would desire you to send her your little page, of all loves: her
husband has a marvellous infection to the little page; and, truly,
master Page is honest man. Never a wife in Windsor leads
a better life than she does; do what she will, say what she will,
ACT IT. SC. II.] THE MEERY WIVES OF WINDSOU.
33.5
take all, pay all/'^ go to bed when she list, rise when she list, all is
as she will; and, truly, she deserves it: for if there he a kind
woman in Windsor, she is one. You must send her your page;
no remedy.
Fal Why, I will.
Quick. Nay, but do so then: and, look you, he may come and
go between you both; and, in any case, have a nay-word, that
you may know one another's mind, and the boy never need to
understand anything; for't is not good that children should know
any wickedness; old folks, you know, have discretion, as they
say, and know the world.
Fal. Fare thee well: commend me to them both: there 's my
purse; I am yet thy debtor. — Boy, go along with this woman.
— This news distracts me! [Ei'e tint Mrs. Quickly and Robin.
Pist. [From be/tind.^ This ])unk is one of Cupid's carriers:"" —
Clap on more sails; pursue; up with your fights;^"
Give fire; she is my prize, or ocean whelm them all!'^
[Exit Pistol.
Fal. Say 'st thou so, old Jack? go thy ways; I'll make more
of thy old body than I have done. AVill they yet look after
thee? Wilt thou, after the expense of so much money, be now
a gainer? Good body, I thank thee: Let them say, 't is grossly
done; so it be fairly done, no matter.
Enter Bardolph.
Bard. Sir John, there 's one master Brook below would fain
speak with you, and be acquainted with you; and hath sent your
worship a morning's draught of sack. "
Fal. Brook is his name?
Bard. Ay, sir.
Fal. Call him in, [Exit Bardolph.] Such Brooks are wel-
come to me that o'erflow such liquor. Ah ! ha I mistress Ford
and mistress Page, have I encompassed you? go to; via!
Re-enter Barbolfii, followed by Ford.'^
Ford. Bless you, sir.
Fal. And you, sir; Would you speak with me?
Ford. I make bold to press with so httle preparation upon
you.
Fal. You're welcome. What's your will? Give us leave,
drawer.^* [Exit Bardolph
330
THE MERllY AVIVES OF AVINDSOE. [act ii. sc. ir.
Ford. Sir, T am a gcntleinau that liavc spent mucli ; iiiy
iiauio is Urook.
FdJ. (iood master Brook, I desire more aeqiiaintance of you.
Ford. Good sir John, 1 sue for yours : not to charge" you ; for
1 nnist let you understand, I think n)yse]f in better pHght for a
lender than yon arc : the which hath somethinji' embolden'd
me to this unseasoned intrusion : for they say, if money go
before, all ways do lie open.
Fal. ^loney is a good soldier, sir, and will on.
Ford. Troth, and I have a bag of money here troubles^" me :
if you will help to bear it, sir John, take all, or half, for easing
me of the carriage.
Sir, I know not how I may deserve to be your porter.
F'ord. I will tell you, sir, if you will give me the hearing.
F((L Speak, good master Brook ; I shall be glad to be your
servant.
F'ord. Sir, I hear you are a scholar, — I will be brief with you,
— and you have been a man long known to me, though I had
never so good means, as desire, to make myself accpiainted with
you. I shall discover a thing to you, wherein 1 must very
nmch lay open mine own imperfection : but, good sir John, as
you have one eye upon my follies, as you hear them unfolded,
turn another into the register of your own ; that I may pass
with a reproof the easier, sith you yourself know how easy it is
to be such an offender.
Fal. Very well, sir ; proceed.
Ford. There is a gentlewoman in this town her husband's
name is Ford.
Fal. AYell, sir.
Ford. I have long loved her, and, I protest to you, bestowed
nmch on her; followed her with a doting observance; engrossed
()j)portunities to meet her ; fee'd every slight occasion that could
but niggardly give me sight of her ; not only bought many
])resents to give her, but have given largely to many, to know
what she would have given briefly, I have pursued her as love
hath pursued me, which hath been on the wing of all occasions.
But whatsoever I have merited, either in my mind, or in my
means, meed, I fim sure, I have received none ; unless ex-
])erience be a jewel ; that I have purchased at an infinite rate ;
and that hath taught me to say this :
Love like a shadow flies, when substance love pursues ;
Pursuing that that flies, and flying what pursues.'''^
ACT II. SC. II.] THE MEEEY WIVES OE AVINDSOU.
337
Fal. Have you received no promise of satisfaction at her
hands ?
Ford. Never.
Fal. Have you importuned her to such a purpose ?
Ford. Never.
Fal. Of what quaUty was your love then?
Ford. Like a fair house huilt on another man's ground ; so
that I have lost my edifice, by mistaking the place where I
erected it.^'^
Fal. To what purpose have you unfolded this to me?
Ford. When 1 have told you that, I have told you all. Some
say, that, though she appear honest to me, yet, in other places, she
enlargeth her mirth so far, that there is shrewd construction
made of her. Now, sir John, here is the heart of my purpose:
You are a gentleman of excellent breeding, admirable discourse,
of great admittance/^ authentic in your place and person,
generally allowed for your many warlike, courtlike, and learned
preparations.
Fal. O, sir !
Ford. Believe it, for you know it : — There is money; spend
it, spend it ; spend more ; spend all I have ; only give me so
much of your time in exchange of it, as to lay an amiable siege
to the honesty of this Ford's wife ; use your art of wooing ; win
her to consent to you ; if any man may, you may as soon
as any,
Fal. \Yould it apply well to the vehemency of your affection,
that I should win what you would enjoy? Methinks you pre-
scribe to yourself very preposterously.
Ford. O, understand my drift ! she dwells so securely on the
excellency of her honour, that the folly of my souF' dares not
present itself ; she is too bright to be looked against. Now,
could I come to her with any detection in my hand, my desires
had instance and argument to commend themselves : I could
drive her then from the ward of her purity,'^ her reputation, her
marriage vow, and a thousand other her defences, which now
are too-too strongly embattled against me : What say you
to 't, sir John?
Fal. Master Brook, I will first make bold with your money;
next, give me your hand ; and last, as I am a gentleman, you
shall, if you will, enjoy Ford's wife.
Ford. O good sir!
Fal. Master Brook, I say you shall.
338
THE MEllllY AVIVES OE WINDSOR, [act ii. sc. ii.
Ford. AYant no nioiicv, sir Jolni, you shall wnut none.
Fill. Want no niistivss Ford, master Brook, you shall want
nono. I shall be with her (I may tell you) by her own appoint-
ment ; even as you eame in to me, her assistant, or g-o-between,
parted from me : I say, I shall be with her between ten and
eleven ; for, at that time, the jealous rascally knave, her husband,
will be forth. Come you to me at night; yon shall know how
I speed.
Ford. I am blessed in your ae(juaintance. Do you know
Ford, sir?
Fal. Hang him, poor cuckoldly knave I know him not : —
yet I wrong him, to call him poor ; they say the jealous
Avittolly knave hath masses of money, for the which his wife
seems to me well-favoured. I will use her as the key of the
cuckoldly rogue's coffer )^ and there's my harvest-home.
Ford. I would you knew Ford, sir ; that you might avoid him,
if you saw" him.
Fal. Hang him, mechanical salt-butter rogue I will stare
him out of his wits; 1 will awe him with my cudgel: it shall
hang like a meteor o'er the cuckold's horns : master Brook,
thou shalt know I will predominate over the peasant, and thou
shalt lie with his wife. — Come to me soon at night : — Ford 's a
knave, and I will aggravate his style ;"^ thou, master Brook,
shalt know him for knave and cuckold : — come to me soon at
night. [_Exit.
Ford. What a damned Epicurean rascal is this ! — My heart is
ready to crack with impatience. — Who says this is improvident
jealousy? ^ly wife hath sent to him, the hour is fixed, the
uiatch is made. AVould any man have thought this? — See the
hell of having a false woman ! My bed shall be abused, my
coffers ransacked, my reputation gnawn at ; and I shall not only
receive this villainous \M'ong, but stand under the adoption of
abominable terms ; and by him that does me this wrong.
Terms ! names ! — Amaimon sounds well ;" Lucifer, well ;
Barbason, well ; yet they are devils' additions, the names of
fiends ! but cuckold ! wittol-cuckold ! the devil himself hath
not such a name."" Page is an ass, a secure ass I he w ill trust
his wife ; he will not be jealous ; I will rather trust a Fleming
with my butter,'^ parson Hugh the Welshman Avith my cheese,'*
an Irishman with my aqua-vitfie bottle, or a thief to walk my
ambling gelding, than my wife with herself: then she plots;
then slie ruminates ; then she devises ; and what they think in
ACT II. sc. III.] THE MERUY WIVES OE WINDSOR.
339
their hearts they may effect, they will hreak their hearts hut
they will efFeet. Heaven be praised for my jealousy! — Eleven
o'clock the hour."^ — I will prevent this, detect my wife, be re-
venged on Falstaff, and laugh at Page. I will about it ; better
three hours too soon, than a minute too late. Fie, tie, fie !
cuckold ! cuckold ! cuckold ! [Exit.
SCENE III.— Windsor— a field near the Thames.
Enter Caius and Rugby.
Caius. Jack Rugby!
Rt(f/. Sir.
Caius. Vat is the clock, Jack?
Ruf/. 'T is past the hour, sir, that sir Hugh promised to meet.
Caius. By gar, he has save his soul, dat he is no come ; he
has pray his Pible well, dat he is no come ; by gar, Jack Rugby,
he is dead alreadv, if he be come.
Rny. He is wise, sir ; he knew your worship would kill him,
if he came.
Caius. By gar, de herring is no dead^" so as I vill kill
him. Take your rapier. Jack; I vill tell you how I vill kill
him.
Rug. Alas, sir, I cannot fence.
Caius. Villainy, take your rapier.
Rug. Forbear; here 's company.
Enter Host, Shallow, Slender, and Page.
Host. Bless thee, bully doctor.
Shal. Save you, master doctor Caius.
Page. Now, good master doctor.
Slen. Give you good-morrow, sir.
Caius. Vat be all you, one, two, tree, four, come for ?
Host. To see thee fight, to see thee foin, to see thee traverse ;
to see thee here, to see thee there ; to see thee pass thy punto,"^
thy stock, thy reverse, thy distance, thy montant. Is he dead,
my Ethiopian? is he dead, my Francisco?^' ha, bully! What
says my iEsculapius ? my Galen ? my heart of elder ?"" ha ! is he
dead, bully Stale ? is he dead ?
Caius. By gar, he is de coward Jack priest of de vorld ; he is
not show his face.
310
THE MEllllY AVIVES OF WINDSOR, [act ii. sc. nr.
//cAs'/. Thou art a Castilian/"" king Urinal ! Hector of Greece,
inv boy!
Cmus. I l)ray you bear witness that nie have stay six or seven,
two, tree hours for him, and he is no come.
S1i(tl. He is the wiser man, master doctor: he is a curcr of
souls, and you a cm'cr of bodies ; if you should fight, you go
against the hair of your professions ; is it not true, master Page ?
I*a(je. INIaster Shallow, you have yourself been a great fighter,
though now a man of })eace.
Shal. Bodykins, master Page, though I now be old, and of
the peace, if I see a sword out, my finger itches^ to make one :
though Ave are justices, and doctors, and churchmen, master
Page, we have some salt of our youth in us ; w e are the sons of
w omen, master Page.
Pafje. 'T is true, master Shallow.
Sliuh It Avill be found so, master Page. Master doctor Caius,
I am come to fetch you home. I am sw orn of the peace ; you
have showed yourself a wise physician, and sir Hugh hath shown
himself a wise and patient churchman : you must go with me,
master doctor.
Hod. Pardon, guest justice — a word, monsieur Mock-
water.'°'
Cams. Mock-vater ! vat is dat ?
Host. ^lock-water, in our English tongue, is valour, bully.
Caius. By gar, then I have as much mock-vater as de English-
man : — Scurvy jack-dog priest ! by gar, me vill cut his ears.
Host. lie will clapper- claw thee tightly, bully.
Caius. Clapper-de-claw! vat is dat?
Host. That is, he will make thee amends.
Caius. By gar, me do look he shall clapper-de-claw me ; for,
by gar, me vill have it.
Host. And I will provoke him to 't, or let him wag.
Caius. Me tank you for dat.
Host. And, moreover, bully, — But first, master guest, and
master Page, and eke cavalero Slender, go you through the town
to Frogmore. [Aside to them.
Page. Sir Hugh is there, is he?
Host. He is there : see what humour he is in ; and I will
bring the doctor about by the fields : will it do well ?
Shal. We w ill do it.
Page, Shallow, and Sle?ider. Adieu, good master doctor.
[Exeunt Page, Shallow, and Slender.
ACT II. sc. III.] THE MEERY WIVES OE WINDSOE.
341
Cams. By gar, me vill kill de priest ; for he speak for a jack-
an-ape to Anne Page.
Host. Let him die : but, first, sheathe thy impatience ; throw
cold water on thy choler : go about the fields with me through
Frogmore ; I will bring thee where mistress Anne Page is, at a
farm-house, a feasting : and thou shalt woo her : Cry'd 1 aim ?^"*
said I well?
Cains. By gar, me dank you vor dat : by gar, I love you ; and
I shall procure-a you de good guest, de earl, de knight, de lords,
de gentlemen, my patients.
Host. For the which, I will be thy adversary toward Anne
Page ; said I well ?
Cains. By gar, 't is good ; veil said.
Host. Let us wag then.
Caius. Come at my heels, Jack Rugby. [Exeunt.
^ Though Love use Beason for his precisian.
In other words, although Love occasionally listens to the dictates of Eeason,
when he desires to conceal the tender passion under the garb of precisian virtue,
he by no means considers him an adviser to be invariably followed. A precisian
was one who pretended to more than an ordinary share of sanctity, and hence the
term was usually applied to a Puritan. " I will set my countenance like precisian,
and begin to speak thus," Doctor Faustus, IGOJi. " In Cancer, precisian s wife
is very flexible," Malcontent, 1604. " It is precisianism to alter that, with austere
judgement, which is given by nature," Case is Alter'd, 1609. "A parasite this
man to night, to-morrow precisian'"' Overbury Characters, 1626. "I will not
be a Stoicke or Precisian,'" Taylor's Workes, 1630, " I dkl commend a great
Precisian to her for her woman," Mayne's Citie Match, 1639, p. 43. " In the
dayes of your folly, you were a Precisian," Hey for Honesty, 1651. "He is half
a Precisian in the outward man ; he loveth little bands, short hair, grave looks,"
Character of an Untrue Bishop. " I cannot forbear laughing, when I think I
never had to do with any of these Precisians," Polititian Cheated, 1663.
Those that be saints abroad.
Whose substance shadowes bee.
Let them go seeke Precisian sects.
They are no mates for mee.
King's Half e-PenmjiDorth of JFit, 4to. 1613.
A Precisian. — To speak no otherwise of this varnished rottenness, than in
truth and verity he is, I must define him to be a demure creature, fidl of oral
sanctity and mental impiety ; a fair object to the eye, but stark nought for the
understandinor, or else a violent thinar much uiven to contradiction. He will be
sure to be in opposition with the Papist, though it be sometimes accompanied with
an absurdity like the islanders near adjoining to China, who salute by putting ofP
their shoes, because the men of China do it by their hats. If at any time he fast,
it is upon Sunday, and he is sure to feast upon Friday. He can better afford you
ten lies than one oath, and dare commit any sin gilded with a pretence of
sanctity. — The Overhurg Characters.
Not one Recusant all the towne doth hold,
Nor (as they say) ther's not a Puritan,
Or any nose-wise foole Precisian. — Taglors Worlces, 1630.
344
NOTES TO THE SECOND ACT.
The man, affriglited with this apparition,
Uj)on recovery grew a great precisian.
Cot graves Wits Interpreter, 1G71, p. 315.
Theobakl proposed to read physician, and the text, with that reading, is thus
exph\ined by Malone, — "A lover, uncertain as yet of success, never takes reason
for his counsellor, hut, when desperate, applies to him as his physician." Tiiis
lection is sup})orted by a line in the Sonnets, — " My reason the pliysician to my
love ;" but, on the wliole, I greatly prefer the reading of the first folio.
Quest. IMay Loa c be called an excellent phisitian ? — An. Nay, rather a hurter of
men ; for how can he take uppon him the title of a phisitian, that cannot heale
any other woundes but those that he himselfe maketh. — Delectable Demaundes
and Pleasant Questions, 1596, p. 37.
- By day or niglit.
An old proverbial phrase, equivalent to always. It again occurs in Henry
VIII. The conclusion of Ealstaff 's letter may be compared with the colophon at
the end of Caxton's edition of Malory's Morte d'Artliur, 1495, which " was
fynysshed the ix. yere of the reygne of Kynge Edwarde the Eourth, —
— " by Syr Thomas Maleore knyght,
As Jhesu helpe hym for his grete myghte.
As he is the servaunt of Jhesu bothe day and nyghte."
But perhaps Shakespeare was merely ridiculing the Skeltonical mode of rhythm.
The expression in the text is also, as Steevens observes, found in Homer's Iliad,
xxii. 432-3, thus faitlifully rendered by Wakefield : — ' My Hector ! night and day
thy mother's joy.' So, likewise, in the third book of Gower, He Confessione
Amantis :
The Sonne cleped was Machayre,
The daughter eke Canace hight,
By daie hothe and eJce hy night.
The phrase also occurs in the Grene Knight, —
The master of it is a venterous knight,
And workes by witchcraft day and flight.
With many a great furley.
^ This Flemish driinJcard.
The Elemings were notorious for drunkenness. Sir John Smythe, in his
Certayne Discourses of divers Sorts of Weapons, 4to. 1590, as quoted by Eeed,
says, that the habit of drinking to excess was introduced into England from the
Low Countries, "by some of our such men of warre Avithin these very few years,
whereof it is come to passe that now-a-dayes there are very fewe feastes where our
said men of warre are present, but that they do invite and procure aU the companie,
of w^hat calling soever they be, to carowsing and quaffing ; and, because they will
not be denied their challenges, they, with many new conges, ceremonies, and
reverences, drinke to the health and prosperitie of princes ; to the health of
counsellors, and unto the health of their greatest friends both at home and
abroad ; in which exercise they never cease till they be deade drunke, or, as the
Flemings say. Boot dronl-en.'' He adds, "And this aforesaid detestable vice hath
within these six or seven yeares taken wonderful roote amongest our English
nation, that in times past was wont to be of all other nations of Christendome one
of the soberest." Moryson, in his Itinerary, 1017, speaking of the Low Country
Inns, observes, — "the Elemmings his consorts drinking beare stiff ely, especially if
NOTES TO THE SECOND ACT.
345
they liglit upon English beare, and drinke being put into the common reckoning
of the company, a stranger shall pay for their intemperancy." See also a curious
account in the same work, part 3, p. 99, in the course of which the writer says, —
" The Netherlanders use lesse excesse in drinking then the Saxons, and more then
other Germans : and if you aske a woman for her husband, she takes it for an
honest excuse, to say he is drunken, and sleepes." There is a much earlier
notice of this propensity of the Flemings, in the Libell of English Policie of
Keeping the Sea, —
Ye have heard that two Flemings togider
Will undertake, or they go any whither,
Or they rise once, to drink a firkin full
Of good beerekin ; so sore they hall and pull.
* For the putting doim of men.
Theobald unnecessarily reads fat men, the quarto having no corresponding
passage, that editor incorrectly citing a wrong speech. Steevens thus explains the
original text: — " The putting doim of men, may only signify the humiliation of
them, the bringing them to shame, restraining their impudence. So, in Twelfth
Night, Malvolio says of the Clown — ' I saw him, the other day, fut doim by an
ordinary fool,' i. e., confounded. Again, in Love's Labour's Lost — 'How the
ladies and I put him downl\ and in Much Ado about Nothing — 'You have
put him doicn, lady, you have put him doimi^ Again, in Burton's Anatomy
of Melancholy, edit. 1633, p. 482 — 'LucuUus' wardrobe is put down by our
ordinary citizens.' "
^ As sure as his guts are made of puddings.
It is worthy of remark that guts was not formerly a vulgar word. Even so
recently as 1744, a gentleman, writing to another, says, — "my guts being weak, I
believe 1 shall soon proceed to Bath." Entrails Avere often termed puddings, and
hence the name of Pudding Lane in London, so called, says Stowe, ed. 1633,
p. 229, — "because the butchers of East-Cheape have their scalding-house for hogs
there, and their puddings, with other filth of beasts, are voided downe that way to
their dung-boats on the Thames." — Cf. Howell's Londinopolis, p. 85.
" This coarse and vulgar expression has hitherto escaped the animadversions of
aU the editors. The intestines of animals were once well known in London by
the name of puddings, as they still are in the North, where may often be heard the
vulgar say, ' as sure as his guts are puddings.' That they were generally so
called, appears from Herbert's Travels, p. 17 — 'But among these bruits, albeit
they have plenty of dead whales, seals, penguins, grease, and ratv puddings, which
we saw them tear and eat as dainties, for they (the Hottentots) neither roast nor
boil.' So that the authors of Sir J. Oldcastle use an intelligible language
in this passage — 'Lieu. Lay hold on him. Harp. Stand off", if you love your
puddings.' " — Sherucens MSS.
^ Sir Alice Ford!
Queen Elizabeth bestowed the honor of knighthood on Mary, the lady of Sir
Hugh Cholmondeley, known as "the bold lady of Cheshire." This was at Tilbury,
at the time of the Spanish Armada.
These hnights will hach.
Alluding, according to some critics, to the immense number of knights made
by the king. See the introduction to this play. A very curious unpublished
anecdote, in connexion with this subject, is preserved in a MS. in the Bodleian
Library, entitled, " The character of Sir Martin Barnham, Knt., written by his sou
II. 44
31G
NOTES TO THE SECOND ACT.
Sir Emncis, who was the father of the Lady Salkeld, in whose closet it was found
after her death :" —
"About this time, King James came to this crowne, to whom Queen EHzabeth,
by her constant sparing hand of all sorts of honour, left great power of satisfaction
and rewards of that kind ; of which, amongst others, kniglithood was most pursued,
as being that of which so many men were then httly capable. The King, having
bin very bountifuU of that honor in his journey from Scotland to London, most
])art of the gentlemen in the other parts of the kingdom were desirous to addresse
themselves in that generall fashion, and though in some particular men by the
king's favour, or mediation of some great men, that honour was freely bestowed,
yet generally it was purchased att great rates, as att 3 or 4 or 5 hundred pounds,
according to the circumstances of precedency and grace with which it was accom-
panied. Now Sir John Grey, my noble friend and near allye, finding the way of
knighting by favor somewhat slack, and not allwayes certain, out of his affection
to me, att the kings first coming to London treated with a Scotchman, an
acquaintance of his, that for 80 lb. and some courtesies which he should do him,
my father and myself should be knighted, and gave me present knowledge tliereof
that it might be suddenly effected, with wh'ch I made my father instantly
acquainted, and told him that though I doubted not to procure both our knight-
hoods without money by the power of some great friends I had in court, yet
considering the obligation to them, and the time that would be lost before that
could certainly be effected, I thought it would be a better way to make a speedy
end of it att so small a charge, rather than to linger it out att uncertaintys, att
such a time as every man made hast to crowd in att the new play of knighthood.
Hereto my father made this answer, that having by God's blessing an estate fit
enough for knighthood, and having managed those offices of creditt which a
countrey gentleman was capable of, he should not be unwilling to take that honor
upon him, if he might have it in such a fashion as that himself might hold it an
honor, but said he, ' If I pay for my knighthood, I shall never be called Sir
Martin, but I shall blush for shame to think how I came by it ; if therefore it
cannot be had freely, I am resolved to content myself with my present condition ;
and for my wife,' said he, merrily, ' I will buy her a new gown instead of a
Ladyship ; this is my resolution for myself, and that which I think fittest for you.'
Finding him tlms resolved, I gave over that way, and made meanes to my noble
friend, the Lord of Pembrook, to procure my father a free knighthood, which he
readily undertook, and appointed him a day to attend for it att Greenwich ; but
that morning there came some newes out of Scotland that putt the King so out of
humor, as made that time unfitt for it, and instantly after, it was published that
the king would make no more knights till the day of his coronation, as resolving
to honour tliat day with a great proportion of that honor; on which day my
father, by the favor of my Lord of Pembrook, had the honor of knighthood freely
bestowed on him, and ^vas ranked before three fourth parts of that dayes numerous
knighting."
" In the interview between Mrs. Eord and Mrs. Page, after each had received
Falstaflf's amorous letter, the former says to the latter : ' If I would but go to hell
for an eternal moment or so, I could be knighted;' taking advantage of the
ambiguity in the word Jcnighted, which may be understood to mean, either that she
could obtain the honour of having a knight at her service and disposal, or that she
could have the dignity of knighthood conferred upon her own person. Mrs. Page
understands the word in the latter sense." — Anonymous.
" Between the time of King James's arrival at Berwick in April, 1603, and the
2d of May, he made two hundred and thirty-seven knights ; and, in the July
following, between three and four hundred. It is probable that the play before us
NOTES TO THE SECOND ACT.
347
was enlarged in that or tlie subsequent year, when this stroke of satire must have
been higlily rehshed by the audience. Eor a specimen of the contemptuous
manner in which these knights were mentioned, see B. Eich's My Ladies Looking
Glasse, 4to. 1616, but written about 1608, p. 66 : ' Knighthood was wont to be
the reward of virtue, but now a common prey to the betrayers of virtue : and we
shall sooner meet Sir Dinadine or Sir Dagenet [the one a cornet knight, the other
King Arthur's foole — marginal note] at another man's table, than with Sir
Tristram de Lionis, or Sir Lancelot de Lake in the field. Knights in former ages
have been assistant unto princes, and were the staires of the commonwealth ; but
now they live by begging from the prince, and are a burthen to the common-
wealth.' "—Malone,
Cor. The Eomans us'd to make their worthies known e,
By honourde titles, and with ornaments.
As rings and chaines, gilt swordes, and spurs of gold,
Which none might weare but such as were allowde.
But now Jacke Sauce will be in's gilded spurs,
Whose father brewde good ale for honest men,
Lodg'd pedlers, tynkers, bearewards such a crew,
The scumme of men, the plaine rascality,
Such was Auratiis Uqiies miles calde ;
The Erench-men now call him un clievalier;
We call them rydders, the English name them knights.
'Twas strange to see what knighthood once would doe,
Stirre great men up to lead a martiaU life.
Such as were nobly borne, of great estates,
To gaine this honour, and this dignity,
So noble a marke to their posterity !
But now, alas ! it's growne ridiculous.
Since bought with money, sold for basest prize.
That some refuse it, which are counted wise.
Gar. But heere's the difference ; for we use to say,
Is such one knighted, — he deservde it well ;
Hee's learned, wise, an hopefuU gentleman,
Hath been abroad, hath scene and knowes the warres ;
He speakes more language then his mothers tongue ;
He can doe's country service, or his prince.
At home, abroad, by sea, or else by land,
Maintaine the sword of civill governement.
But sucli one's made a knight ; What that arch-clowne !
His wit is like his mother's milking payle :
Brought up at home, or at tlogsnorton-schoole :
His father neare gave armes, writ goodman Clunch,
And he kept sheepe, or beasts, drove plough or cart :
The first on's name, first knight, then gentleman ;
God give him joy ; his honour cost him deare :
A sotte in crimson, growne a golden knight ;
Well may'te become him ! he becomes not it
More then an asse a rich caparison.
Hans Beer-Pot Ms Invisible Comedie, 4to. Lond. 1618.
^ And heep place together.
Theobald, in his letters to Warburton, proposes to read, heep pace, the psalm
being slow, and the tune very rapid.
3i8
NOTES TO THE SECOND ACT.
" Threw this ichale, with so many tuns of oil in his Icily.
O, sir, cried the garsoon, an elephant ; no, 'tis a man roll'd hitlicr in a dry-fat :
how he tumbles; some whale, sure, i>-ottcn to land! No, 'tis a Manning-tree oxe
with a pudding- in his belly. — The Wandering Jew telling Fortunes to English-men,
^iQ. Lond. 1619.
^° llave melted him in his own grease.
But certeynly I made folk such chere,
That in his owne g-rees I made him frie
For anger, and for verray jalousie. — Chaucer, Cant. T, G060.
" In this mystery of ill opinions.
That is, in this extraordinary medley of yours of abuse against Ealstaff.
JFrit icith hlanh space for different names.
Spru. What doe you thinke I have in this boxe then ? — Care. I know not. —
Spru. A bundle of blanke love letters, ready pend with as much vehemency of
affection, as I could get for money, only wanting the superscription of their names,
to whom they shall be directed, which I can instantly, and with ease, indorse upon
acquaintance. — Care. And so send them to your Mistresse? — Spru. You under-
stand mee. I no sooner fall into discourse with any lady, but I professe my selfe
ardently in love with her, and being departed, returne my boy with one of these
letters, to second it, as I said, passionately deciphering how much I languish for
her ; which shee cannot but deepely apprehend, together with the quicknesse and
promptitude of my ingenuitie in the dispatch of it. — Care. He practise this device.
Prethee, let mee see one of them ; what's heere ? ' To the fayre hands of ' — Spru.
I, there wants a name ; they fit any degree or person whatsoever. — Care. Let mee
see this then. ' To the Lady and Mistresse of his thoughts, and service.' — Spru.
There wants a name too. They are generall things. — Care. He open it by your
favour, sir ; what's heere ? ' Most resplendent Lady, that may justly bee stded,
the accomplishment of beautie, the seat and mansion of all delight and vertue, in
whom meete the joy and desires of the happie. Some man heere perhapps might
feare, in praysing your worth, to heighthen your disdayne, but I am forc'd, though
to the perill of my neglect, to acknowledge it : For to this houre my curious
thoughts, and wandering, in the spheare of feminine perfection, could never yet
finde out a subject like your selfe, that could so detaine and commaund my
affection.' — Spru. And so it goes on: How doe you like it? — Car. Admirable
good ; put them up againe. — Marmyons Fine Companion, 1G33.
And these are of the second edition.
I once had a rather fanciful notion, that there might possibly be here an
allusion to the surreptitious quarto edition.
^* He cares not what he puts into the press.
Ambiguously for a press to print, and a press to squeeze. — Johnson.
And lie under mount Pelion.
Why? Is there here a jumbling allusion to the story of Cretides and Peleus?
If he come under my hatches.
I thanked him, and did it with more ceremony and respect than ever, because
I thought myself more under the hatches than I was before. — History of Colonel
JacJc, 1723.
^'^ I will consent to act any villainy against him.
Fillainy, mischief, injury. So, in the Lover's Quarrel, or Cupid's Triumph,
12mo. Lond. 1G77, a little chap-book, —
NOTES TO THE SECOND ACT.
349
What tydings ? wliat tydings ? tliou Tommy Pots,
Thou art so full of courtesie ;
Thou hast slain some of thy fellows fair,
Or wrought to me some villamj.
The chariness of our honesty.
That is, the caution which ought to attend it. — Steevens.
0, that my htishand saiD this letter!
" Surely Mrs. Ford does not wish to excite the jealousy of which slie complains.
I think we should read — O, if my husband, &c., and thus the copy, 1619 : O
Lord, if my husband should see tlie letter ! i' faith, this would even give edge to
his jealousie." — Steevens. The same suggestion was made by Theobald.
Well, I hope it he not so.
It was, till lately, the universal practice to omit this dialogue in representation,
and even now, it is only seldom retained ; but it is necessary to the complete
development of this part of the plot. What else is the use of the declaration of
Pistol and Nym to be revenged on Ealstaff ?
~^ Hope is a curtail dog in some affairs.
A curtail dog is a worthless dog, a dog without a tail good for any service.
"A curtald dogg, chien courtaud, cest a dire chien sans queue ou esqueue hon a
tout service." — Howell's Lex. Tet. 1060.
Both high and low, both rich and poor.
" Heare this, aU yee people : give eare, all yee that dwell in the world : As well
low as high, both rich and poore," Psabn 49.
He loves the gally-mawfry.
Gally-mawfry, the "whole hotchpotch" of the fair sex. "A gallemalfrie or
hotchpotch," Baret, 1580. "To all that gallimaufry," 'Tis Pity slie's a Whore,
1633. The term was ludicrously used for a girl or woman. "Gallants or galli-
maufries," Woman never Vex'd, 1632.
Pun. Why, how now, Panims ? lighting like two sea-fish in the map ? AVhy,
how now, my little gallimaufry, my Oleopodrido of arts and arms ; Hold the
feirce Gudgings ! — Cutter of Coleman Street, 1663.
^* With Bingwood at thy heels.
Ringwood was a common name given to a dog. Pord will, in Pistol's opinion,
be a stag with horns, and dogs will follow him.
Bell, Did you know Eockwood ? — Prigg. Know him ? As well as any man in
the world: his father was a dog of my father's, called Jowler; his mother was my
noble Lord Squander's father's famous bitch Venus, which you have heard of: I
remember, Mr. Carlos Venus was sister to your father's dog Bingwood. Rockwood?
I knew him as well as 1 knew your father ; well rest their souls of a dog and a
man ! 1 shall never see two better in the field than Eockwood and your father.—
ShadweWs True Widow, 1679.
Tantivee, tivee, tivee, tivee, high and low.
Hark, hark, how the merry merry horn does blow,
As through the lanes and the meadows we go ;
As Puss has run over the down :
When Bingwood, and Eockwood, and Jowler, and Spring,
And Thunder and Wonder made all the woods ring.
And horsemen, and footmen, hey ding, a ding, ding, &c.
The Marriage Hater Matched, 1692.
350
NOTES TO THE SECOND ACT.
The horn, I say: Farewell.
''PistoU. The liorn, I say; Farewell : Take heed, e'rc sommer comes,
or cuckoo-birds do sing: Take heed, have open eye, for theeves do foot
by night," — the MS. mentioned at p. 238.
Or cnckoo-hirds do sing.
The quarto reads, " when cuckoo-birds appear ;" and some editors, to make
rlniue, — " when cuckoo-birds affright'''
^ Believe it, Page; he speah sense.
" Eord and Pistol, Page and Nym, enter in pairs, each pair in separate con-
versation ; and while Pistol is informing- Ford of Ealstaff 's design upon his wife,
Nym is, during that time, talking aside to Page, and giving information of the
like plot against him. — AVhen Pistol has finished, he calls out to Nym to come
an-ag: but seeing that he and Page are still in close debate, he goes oiF alone, first
assuring Page he may depend on the truth of Nym's story, ' Believe it, Page,'
&c. Nym then proceeds to tell the remainder of his tale out aloud. 'And this is
true,' &c. A little further on in this scene, Pord says to Page, ' Yott heard what
this knave (i. e. Pistol) told me,' &c. Page replies, ' Yes : And you heard what
the other (i. e. Njtu) told me.' " — Steevens.
~^ It shall hite upon my necessity.
To hite was an old technical term for cutting with a sword. Pistol says his sword
shall cut, he will go to the wars, when it is necessary to do so for his living. " I
byte upon, as a weapen or tole dothe, whan it cutteth a harde or a toughe thyng ;
he stroke above twenty strokes at my sworde, but it is so harde, that his weapen
coulde nat byte upon it," Palsgrave, 1530. " That, glauncing on her shoulder-
plate, it bit unto the bone," Spenser. " The tempred Steele did not into his
braine-pan bite," ibid.
And there's the humour of it.
This passage, which is quite necessary to the text, is taken from the surrep-
titious quarto edition.
Frights English out of his wits.
Alluding to Nym's bombastic language. The quarto reads humour instead of
English. Either reading is unobjectionable.
Such a draiding affecting rogue.
Affecting is merely the active participle used for the passive, several instances
of which occur in Shakespeare and contemporary writers. So we have in the
Winter's Tale, "your discontenting father," for, "your discontented father."
I will not helieve such a Catalan.
Cataian was a cant term for a thief, or sharper. Sir Toby uses the word,
when he is intoxicated ; but its exact meaning and derivation are doubtful, further
than the probability of its being used in reference to the Catalans, or Chinese, who
were always remarkable for thievery. "A wild Cataian," a dexterous sharper,
Decker's Honest AVliore, 1604.
Frivo. Thou art as cruell as a constable.
That's wak'd with a quarrell out of his first sleepe.
Vas. Hang him, bold Cataian ; hee indites finely;
And will live as well by sending short epistles.
Or by th' sad whis])er at your gamsters elbow,
When the great by is drawne, as any bashfull
Gallant of em all. — Bavenant's Love and Honour, 1649.
NOTES TO THE SECOND ACT.
351
' Twas a good sensible fellow.
" This, and the two preceding speeches of Eord, are spoken to himself, and
have no connexion with the sentiments of Page, who is likewise making his
comment on what had passed, without attention to Eord." — 'Steevens.
You are come to see my daughter Anne.
The MS. (see p. 238) reads, — " Now, Mistress Quickly, you are come," &c.
A yol:e of his discarded serving-men.
A yoJce, or couple ; in the same way, the Greek IxwojoIq^ a team of two horses,
is also used for a pair or couple in general.
^® 1 would have nothing lie on my head.
That is, I should be very sorry not to take the utmost pains to discover the
truth, so that no blame shall be imputed to me for want of caution.
^'^ Good even and twenty.
That is, twenty good evens. " God {sic) night and a thousand to every
body," Eliot's Eruits for the Erench, 1593. A similar phrase is, Fareioell and a
thousand, i. e., a thousand times farewell, Peele's Works, i. 217.
Tell him, cavalero-justice.
" This cant term occurs in the Stately Moral of Three Ladies of London,
1590: — 'Then know, Castilian cavaleros, this.' There is also a book printed in
1599, called, A CountercufPe given to Martin Junior; by the venturous, bardie,
and renowned Pasquil of Englande, Cavaliero'' — Steevens. Shortly afterwards,
where the folio has, my guest-cavalier, the quarto reads, — " my guest, my
cavellira,"
My merry host hath had the measuring of their weapons.
"Alluding to the custom in trials allowed by law, where search used to be
made by the attending knights, before the combat, of the equality of their
weapons ; which were at the defendant's election, provided he confined his choice
between ancient, usual and military." — Dr. Grey.
None, I protest.
This speech is wrongly given to Shallow in the first folio. The error was
corrected in the edition of 1630.
A pottle of burnt sack.
Burnt, or warmed, wine was formerly very fashionable, and is frequently
alluded to. See the anecdote quoted at p. 366. "A cup of burnt wine in a tavern in
winter, or wine and sugar in summer," Wandering Jew telling Eortunes to
English-men, 1649.
One coming to a taverne and asking for wine, it was askt him what wine
hee would drink? hee answered, a pint of claret and burnet; the vintner,
instead thereof, went and really burnt itt. — Ward's Diary.
*^ And tell him my name is Brooh.
Eord's assumed name is Brooh in the quarto edition, and Broom in the folio.
Theobald says that we need no better evidence in favour of the reading of the
quartos, than the pun that EalstaflP makes on the name, when Brook sends him
some burnt sack ; but it may be objected that this pun is almost entirely lost in
the early edition. In favour of the adopted reading in the amended play, the
foUowin^^nes may be adduced, which appear to be intended to rhyme — •
NOTES TO THE SECOND ACT.
Nay, I'll to liiin nii'aln in name of T5rome :
lie '11 tell mc all his purpose ; Sure, lie '11 come.
*^ II ill y OH (/o, myn-lieers ?
That is, will you go, my masters ? The original reads An-hehes, which seems
to be a corru})tion. Theobald proposed, on here, and myn-hecrs ; and the following
readings have been suggested, — anearst; my licarts ; on, heroes; on, heeren ; on,
hearts; trill you go, and hear ns ; an trill yon yo, eh, sir; eavaleires, &c. Some
time ago, I suggested, on, sirs, on the supposition that if the MS. had, on, Syrs,
the printer's eye might easily mislead him, the h and the lony s, when the latter is
followed by a y, being often alike in old MSS. Bumble, in Davenant's Newes
from riimouth, 1673, p. 12, makes use of the expression, liine Here ; and Mr.
Dyce considers this reading in the text confirmed by the manner in which the
same term is printed in the 1647 edition of Beaumont and Eletcher, — " Nay, Sir,
mine heire Van-dunck is a true Statesman."
An evidence that Theobald's reading is a probable one, is contained in
Flecknoe's Diarium or Journall, 12mo. Lond. 1656, p. 26, —
Erom thence we gallopt o're to Acton,
Where ale, and beer, and wine, we lackt none :
Though for my part in countrey town.
Barely with palat wine goes down,
Has had far better bringing up,
Such trash in belly e're to put.
As mungrel balderdash Mine Heer
Dutchman has stummed for us there,
Who loves so well our beere to brew,
Our very wine he'U brew us too.
** Have tcith you, mine host.
In qnovis tibi loco paratus sum, I am readie for you in any place : put but up
the finger where you will, and have tcith you. — Terence in English, 1614.
With my long stoord.
" Before the introduction of rapiers, the swords in use were of an enormous
length, and sometimes raised with both hands. Shallow, with an old man's
vanity, censures the innovation by which lighter weapons were introduced, tells
what he could once have done with his long stcord, and ridicules the terms and
rules of the rapier." — Johnson. " The tivo-handed sword is mentioned in the
ancient Interlude of Nature, bl. 1. no date : — ' Somtyme he bereth my ttoo-hand
sword.' " — Sieevens.
"Dr. Johnson's explanation of the long stford is certainly right: for the
early quarto reads — ' my ttco-hand sword ;' so that they appear to have been
synonjmous. Carleton, in his Thankful Bemembrance of God's Mercy, 1625,
speaking of the treachery of one Bowland York, in betraying the towne of
Deventer to the Spaniards in 1587, says : ' he was a Londoner, famous among the
cutters in his time, for bringing in a new kind of fight — to run the point of the
NOTES TO THE SECOND ACT.
353
rapier into a man's body. This manner of fight he brought first into England^
with great admiration of his audaciousness : when in England before that time,
the use was, with Httle bucklers, and with hroadj swords, to strike, and not to
thrust; and it was accounted unmanly to strike under the girdle.' The Continuator
of Stowe's Annals, p. 1024, edit. 1631, supposes the rapier to have been intro-
duced somewhat sooner, viz. about the 20th year of the reign of Queen Elizabeth
[1578], at which time, he says, sword and bucklers began to be disused.
Shakspeare has here been guilty of a great anachronism in making Shallow
ridicule the terms of the rapier in the time of Henry lY., an hundred and seventy
years before it was used in England." — Malone.
" It should seem from a passage in Nash's Life of Jacke Wilton, 1594, that
rapiers were used in the reign of Henry Ylll. : 'At that time 1 was no com-
mon squire, &c. — my rapier pendant like a round stick fastned in the tacklings,
for skippers the better to climbe by." The introduction of the rapier instead of
the long sicord is thus alluded to in the Maid of the Mill, by Eletcher and
Eowley, act iv. sc. ii : — 'Bustoplia. — But all this is nothing : now I come to
the point. Julio. — Aye the point, that's deadly; the ancient blow over the
buckler ne'er went half so deep." — llltson and Bosicell.
The above notes on this passage are taken entirely from the variorum edition.
The first cut is of a heavy old fashioned English sword of the time of Henry the
Eighth, preserved in the Meyrick collection ; the second is of a light sword, or
rapier ; both selected by Mr. Eairholt.
'^^ And stand so firmhj on his wife s frailty .
His wife's frailty, that is, his frail wife. See vol. i., p. 281. According to
Upton, Eord " was going to say lionesty ; but corrects himself, and adds unex-
pectedly,/;YM//y, with an emphasis." Theobald proposes to YQ?iA fealty {qx frailty,
but the old reading is undoubtedly correct. Stand on, that is, insist upon. " In
the place from which 1 came, I meane the Academe, there are but two pointes
the schollers stand upon,'' Breton's Okie Man's Lesson and a Young Man's
Love, 1G05. " Stoutly on their honesties doe wylie harlots stand," Warner's
Albions England, ed. 1612, p. 149. "All captains, and stand upon the honesty
of your wives," Heywood's Eape of Lucrece, 1630.
Eellowes that stande only upon tearmes to serve the turne, with their
blotted papers, Avrite as men go , for needes, and when they write,
they write as a , now and then drop a phamphlet, — The Beturne from
Bernassus, 1606.
'^^ What they made there.
That is, Avhat they did there. " The priest and the tanner, seeing the taylor,
mused ichat he made there; the taylor, on the other side, marvelled as much
at their presence," Pleasant Elistory of Jack of Newbury, n. d. Compare As
You Like It, act i.
Why, then the icorld's mine oyster, ^'c.
Alluding, says Dr. Grey, to the old English proverb, — "The Major of
Northampton opens oisters with his dagger," Bay's English Proverbs, ed. 1678,
p. 328. Kay explains it thus, — "to keep them at a sufficient distance from his
II. 45
35-1
NOTES TO THE SECOND ACT.
nose ; for this town being eighty miles from the sea, fish may well be presumed
stale therein."
'^^ I tcill retort the sum in equipage.
In the quarto, tliis line constitutes the whole of Pistol's speech, and it is not
found in the folio. The addition was made by \\"arburton. ''J'J(pi'q)i)(Nje, digliting
or setting forth of man, horse, or ship," Minsheu. The term is here used by
Pistol in the sense of dress, or personal adornments : he will return the amount
in stolen goods. The word was fashionable, and not always used correctly.
Davies, in his Scourge of Polly, p. 233, says that the word equipage is one
of those affected terms that " are good, but ill us'd ; in over-much use savouring
of witlesse affectation."
" I would observe to you, that the old quarto here subjoins a line, that, in
my opinion, ought not to be lost ; — ' I will retort the sum in equipage,' This
makes Pistol first bluster in his fustian manner, and then, very naturally, in the
same strain, renew his suit upon promise of recompence. Besides, it admirably
marks our poet's exactness in keeping up his character. Pistol, in Plenry V.,
renews the same peculiar dialect ; ' To retort the solus in thy bowels.' " —
Theobald'' s Letters.
You and your coach-fellow, Nym.
Theobald proposed yohe-fellow, and couch-fellow, but no change is really
necessary. The original text, says Capell, intimates that " they W'Cre both rogues
alike, and as well pair'd as horses are in a coach."
" Your coach-fellow, Nym, i. e., he who draivs along with you ; wlio is joined
with you in all your knavery. So before, Page, speaking of Nym and Pistol, calls
them a 'yoke of Falstaff's discarded men.'" — Malone. ''Coach-fellow has an
obvious meaning; but the modern editors read, couch-felloiD. The following
passage from Pen Jonson's Cynthia's Revels may justify the former reading : ''Tis
the swaggering coach-horse Anaides, draws with him there.' Again, in Monsieur
D'Olive, 1606: 'Are you he my page here makes choice of to be his fellow
coach-liorse?' and, ibid., ' welcome little wit ; my page Pacque here makes choice
of you to be his fellow coach-horsed Again, in A True Narrative of the
Entertainment of his Royal Majestic, from the Time of his Departure from
Edinburgh, till his Receiving in London, &c. 1603: ' — a base pilfering theefe
was taken, who ])laid the cutpurse in the court ; his fellow was ill mist, for no
doubt he had a walking-mate : they drew together like coach-horses, and it is pitie
they did not hang together.' Again, in Every Woman in her Humour, 1609 : —
' For wit, ye may be coach" d together.' Again, in the 10th book of Chapman's
translation of Homer : ' — their chariot horse, as they coach-fellows were.' " —
Steevens. " He '11 be an excellent coach-horse for any captain," Greene's Tu
Quoque, ap. Gifford.
You tcere good soldiers, and tall felloivs.
The MS. reads, 'Hhat you were good soldiers, and stout fellows ;" also after-
wards, my honor, and, didst thou not share ? See note on the phrase, tall fellows^
in the annotations to the Winter's Tale.
When mistress Bridget lost the handle of her fan.
The fans of Shakespeare's time were generally formed of feathers, inserted in
handles, the latter being often made of very costly materials. The reader will
observe a specimen of one held by a lady, in the curious satirical wood-cut inserted
NOTES TO THE SECOND ACT.
355
at p. 120 of the present volume. Silver handled fans are twice mentioned in
Marston's poems, 1598, and also in Hall's Satires. " She hath a fan with a short
silver handle ahout the length
of a harbor's siringe," Sharp-
ham's Eleire, 1607. Decker,
in London Tempe, 1629, men-
tions " a golden handle for my
wife's fann." See fm-ther, res-
pecting fans, in the notes to
Love's Labour's Lost ; res-
pecting fan-handles, in the notes
to I Hemy lY. ; and an inter-
esting article on the subject in
Eairholt's Costume in England,
p. 496, the accompanying en-
gravings of Elizabethan fans
(with handles jewelled) having
been selected by the last-named
writer from specimens in portraits of ladies of Shakespeare's time.
^" A short hiife, and a throng.
So, Lear : "When cutpurses come not to throngs^ — Sir Thomas Overbury's
Characters, 1616, says Malone, furnish us with a confirmation of the reading of
the old copies : " The eye of this wolf is as quick in his head as a cutpurse in a
throng." Dennis reads thong. Greene, in his Life of Ned Browne, 1592, says :
" I had no other fence but my short Jmife, and a paire of purse-strings."
To your manor of PicM-hatch, go.
In Shakespeare's time, that portion of London which is now bounded on the
North by Old Street, on the East by Golding Lane, on the South by Barbican, and
on the West by GosweU Street and the Charter-house, consisted for the most part
of scattered collections of small tenements, generally with gardens attached to
them, and a few alleys or courts. Somewhere in this small portion of the
metropolis was situated the notorious resort of bad characters, wliich was known
as the Pickt-hatch, that name, it is conjectured, being derived from the iron spikes
placed over the half-door, or hatch, one of the characteristics of a house of ill-fame,
— "Set some picks upon your hatch, and, I pray, profess to keep a bawdy house,"
Cupid's Whirligig, 1607. Several of the resorts of bad characters were termed
hatches. The exact position of this place is scarcely determined with accuracy,
although Mr. Cunningham says, " what teas Picthatch is a street at the back of a
narrow turning called Middle Eow (formerly Eotten Eow) opposite the Charter-
house wall in Goswell street ; the name is still preserved in Pickax Yard adjoining
Middle Eow," Hand Book of London, ed. 1850, p. 400. Eor the locality olf
Pickax Yard 1 have enquired in the neighbourhood in vain; but the maps of
London of the last century (Eocque's, 1748, and others) show Pickax Street as
that part of Goswell Street which commences at the Barbican, and which is
named " Pickax Street, "Aldersgate Street," in the ' Compleat Guide to all
Persons who have any Trade or Concern with the City of London,' 1740, p. 41.
Aggas's map exhibits houses in Pickax Street, and fields or gardens at Middle-
row. It would, however, appear from an entry in the Pat. Eot. 33 Eliz. pars 9,
mem. 27, that Pickt-hatch was very near Old Street, even if it did rot run out of
it, — "Ac totam illam parvam pec : terra? nostram inclus : nuper occupat : pro
gardino, continen : in longitudine sexaginta et duos pedes, et in latitudine quin-
350
NOTES TO TEE SECOND ACT.
([imi>-lnta ct scj)tcin pedes, et deccm polas assizrc, una cum pnrvo stabulo supcrinde
editicat:, cum ])ertineutiis, jacen : iuOlde Slreete sice I^iclcc-J lalche prope le Charter-
house, in parochia Saiicti E(jidii extra Crepleyate in comitaiu Midd :, adjacen :
cuidam gardino in Icnura Robcrti Greene ex parte austral:, et horr: in tenura
Joliannis Stephens ex parte oriental:, ac regiam viam ducen: a civitate Londonije
usque Islington ex parte occidental :, et a Ic Charter-house usque Hoggsdon ex
jiarte boreal :, raodo vel nuper in tenura vel occu})atione Henrici Staplel'orde vel
assign : suoruni." This notice is very curious, because it clearly describes tlie
snuill piece of ground at the corner of Old Street and Goswell Street, the latter
being the road to Islington, and the former to Hogsdon. On the East of this
piece of ground, which was a garden, the only erection on it being a small shed,
was a barn ; and on the South was also a garden. The terms of the grant would
lead us to infer that the AVestern end of Old Street was the Pickt-hatch ; but in
opposition to this conclusion nuist be quoted a Survey of the Prebendal Manor of
Einsbury, 161)9, discovered by Mr. T. E. Tomlins, wherein is mentioned, "all tliat
otlier parcel of demesne land commonly called and known by the name of Rotten
Row, set, lying and being in the parish of St. Giles's without Cripj)legate, in a
certain street there commonly called Old Street, adjoining North upon the said
street, and South upon a icay or passage leading out of Old Street into the
Picl'thatch, and abutting East upon the Cage and Prison House in Old Street
aforesaid." The readiest way to reconcile these accounts is to conclude that the
name of Pickthatch was given to a collection of tenements situated so near Old
Street (towards the Charterhouse), that the terms of the grant by patent, above
cited, would correctly apply to it; and that the name of Pickax Street was derived
from the older locality, although not placed on its exact site. There is a
discrepancy between the names of the streets in the old maps, and their present
situations, that seems difficult of explanation. Thus in Stowe, ed. 1720, Rotten
Row is marked at the extreme end of Goswell Street and Old Street, whereas it
now corresponds to a long passage, between those streets, a little to the South, as
indicated in the same map, where the Starcli Alley, as at present, demonstrates the
position of Middle or Rotten Row, which appears formerly, from a curious passage
here quoted from Mill's Night's Search, 1610, to have enjoyed a reputation very
similar to that of Pickt-hatch.
Erom the Bordello it might come as well,
The Spittle, or Pict-hatch. — Every Man in his Humour, acted 1598.
No, his old Cynick dad
Hath forc't him cleane forsake liis Pickhatch drab.
Marstons Scourge of Villanie, 1599.
O, for a humour, looke who yon doth goe,
The meager lecher, lewd Luxurio :
'Tis he that hath the sole monopoly.
By patent, of the superb lechery.
No newe edition of drabbes comes out.
But scene and allow'd by Luxurio's snout.
Did ever any man ere lieare him talke
But of Pich-hatch, or of some Shoreditch baulke. — Ibid.
Whitefryers then was left quite unfrequented,
Clarconwell, Bancks-side, and PicJdhatch, repented
That ever she so comonly was knowne ;
Eor that their houses out of use were growne.
The Neice Metamorphosis, MS. circa 1600.
NOTES TO THE SECOND ACT.
357
A tlired-bare sliarke. One that never was souldier, yet lives upon lendings.
His profession is skeldring and odling ; his banke Poules ; and his ware-house
Pict-hatch. Takes up single testons upon othes, till Doomes day. Falls under
executions of three shillings, and enters into five-groat bonds. — Every Man out of
his Humour, fol. ed.
I proceeded toward Picht-Jiatch, intending to beginne their first, which, as I
may fitly name it, is the very skirts of all brothel-houses. — The Blade Boohe, hy
T. J/., 4to. Lond. 1604, p. 1.
I desire to die now, sales he, for your love, that I might be buried here. — Iiu,d.
A good j02c^--if/i«cA(f complement, by my faith. — Sir Gyles Goosecappe, IGOG.
Borrow' d and brought from loose Venetians,
Becoms Picht-hatch and Shoreditch courtizans. — Du Bartas, p. 576.
The decayed vestals of Pict-hatch would thank you. — Ben Jonsons Alchemist,
acted in 1610.
That runs proud of her love ; pluck you by tlie sleeve,
Whoe'er were with you, in open street,
With the impudency of a drunken oyster-wife ;
Put on my fighting waistcoat, and the ruff
That fears no tearing ; batter down the windows
Where 1 suspected you might lie all night ;
Scratch faces, like a wild-cat ol PicJcd-hatch.
Field's Woman is a Weathercoch.
If 1 shall tell how thou mad'st PicJct-hatch smoke.
And how without smoke thou wast fired there.
Freeman's Buhhe and a Great Cast, 1614.
A Bedlam looke, shag haire, and staring eyes,
Horse-courser's tongue for oths and damned lyes ;
A Picht-hatch pair of pockey limping legs,
And goes like one that fees in shackles begs.
The Knaves of Spades and Diamonds, n. d.
Shift, here, in towne, not meanest among squires.
That haunt Picht-hatch, Mersh-Lanibeth, and White-fryers,
Keepes himselfe, with lialfe a man, and defrayes
The charge of that state, with this charme, god payes.
Ben Jonsoiis Fpigrammes, folio ed., p. 771.
Then doth this subject pase it to Picht-hatch,
Shore-ditch, or Turneball, in despite o'th' watch ;
And there reposing on his mistrisse lap.
Beg some fond favour, be't a golden cap.
Iluttons Follies Anatomic, 1619.
Sometimes, shining in lady-like resplendent brightnesse with admiration, and
suddenly againe eclipsed with the pitchy and tenel^rous clouds of contempt and
deserved defamation. Sometimes at the Pull at Picht-hatch, and sometimes in
the Wane at Bridewell. — Taylor s JForhes, 1630.
Which strait with melancholly mov'd,
Old Bembus, burgomaster of Picht-hatch,
That plunging through the sea of Turnebull streete,
He safely did arive at Smithfield Barres. — Ibid.
These be your piche-hatch curtezan wits, that merit (as one jeasts upon them)
35S
NOTES TO THE SECOND ACT.
after tlicir decease to bee carted in Charles' wainc. — TJie Optich Glasse of
Humors, lGo9.
If still you niisse'em, go to Sliorditcli then,
Yor that's a place where whores have begger'd men ;
If there you find them not, I'le say 'tis strange,
Yet be not out of heart, for Pklct-hatch grange
Is the most likeliest place : Eor this I know,
They're either there, or gone to Eotten How.
Mills NiglWs Search, 8vo. Lond. 1640.
However, let's at the downefall of our enemies rejoyce, and send proclamations
through Turnmill-street, Goulding-lane, Beech-lane, Pich-hatch, and in all other
places where any of our societie remaines. — The Sisters of the Scabard's Holiday,
4to. 1641.
Nim. The yearly value
Of my faire mannor of Clerkenwell, is pounds,
So many, besides New- years capons ; the Lordship
Of Turnball so — which with my PicJc-hatch grange
And Shoreditch farm, and other premises
Adjoyning — very good, a pretty maintenance.
Muses Looking- Glasse, 12mo. Lond. 1643.
Why, the whores of Pict-hatch, Turnbull, or the unmercifull bawds of
Eloomsbury, under the degree of Plutus, will not let a man be acquainted with
the sins of the suburbs. — Hey for Honesty, 1651.
Let Cupid go to Grub-street, and turn archer ;
Yenus may set up at Pict-hatch or Eloomsbury. — Ibid.
The devil is busiest i'th' Church. Picld-Hatch ne're was visited ; Turnbal-
street needs no Reformation. — Cleaveland Revived, 1660.
In the mean time, while they were ransacking his box and pockets, Eobinson
fell a railing at the colonel, giving him the base terms of rebel and murderer, and
such language as none could have learned but such as had been conversant with
the civil society of Picked-hatch, Turnbull Street, and Billingsgate, near which last
place the hero had his education. — Memoirs of Colonel Hutchinson, 1664.
Some have thought erroneously that Pickt-hatch was in Turnbull-street, from
a passage in Eield's Amends for Ladies, — " your whore doth live in Pict-hatch,
Turnebole-street ;" but perhaps a conjunction has been here omitted. See ed.
1639, sig. D. Other notices of this place occur in Ben Jonson's Bartholomew
Fair; Middleton's Works, ed. Dyce, v. 512; Brome's Poems, p. 310; New Trick
to Cheat the Devil, cited at p. 44 of the present volume.
Will ensconce your rags.
It has been unnecessarily proposed to take rags in the sense of ragings ; and
also to read hrags. The meaning of the original is perfectly clear and consistent.
To know the vice, and ignorance of aU,
With any rags the'le drink a pot of ale :
Nay, what is more (a strange unusuall thing
With poets) they will pay the reckoning.
Pandolj)h's Poems, 12mo. Lond. 1643.
®^ Your cat-a-mountain looks.
Cat-a-mountain, a wild cat of the mountains, from the Spanish gdto monies,
" a cat of mountaine, a wilde cat," Percivale's Dictionarie, 1599. A cat-o'-the-
NOTES TO THE SECOND ACT.
359
mountain, according to Taylor the "VYater-Poet, 1630, used to be exhibited in the
Tower of London, — " like a Towre Cat-a-3£oimtame, stare and scowle." The
catamount of North America is a larger, and different, animal.
Two pleasant fellowes comming by a Bartholmew Eayre, where, mongst other
shewes, divers beasts were to be scene, as a leopard, a Cat a Mountaine, and
the like. — Moderne Jests and Witty Jeeres, p. 144.
^'^ Tour red-lattice phrases.
That is, your tavern language, the window of lattice of red, blue, or green,
being formerly the indication of an ale-house, lied appears to have been the
most usual colour, allusions to the red lattice being very numerous. See the notes
to Henry IV., and the examples there cited. The sign of the Green Lattice is
mentioned by Ben Jonson, in Every Man in
his Humour; and there was a Green Lattice
in Cock Lane, as appears from the token of
the seventeenth century here engraved. The
name of Green Lettuce Lane, in the City, is
probably derived from the same sign. There
was also the Bed Lettuce in Butcher's Bow.
'■^Lorica, crosse railes, or rayles made slopewise
like the lattises of tavernes," Nomenclator,
1585. The following from a rare work by Braithwaite, Law of Drinking, 12mo.
Lond. 1617, is sufficiently curious to be given entire :
"A president of t)inding any one apprentise to the Ivuoimi trade of the Icy-hush,
or Bed-lettice ; tahen out of the ancient register-hool-e of Potina. — Be itknowne unto
all men by these presents, that 1 Balph Bednose of Bunning-Spiggot in the countie
of Turne-Tap, bowzer, am tide and fast bound unto Francis Eiery-face in all
up-carouses, in twenty pots sterling; that is to say, not by the common can or jug
now used, but by the ancient full top and good measure, according to the laudable
custome of the Bed Lettice of Nip-scalpe ; to the which said payment well and
truelyto be made, Ibind me, my heires, ale-squires, pot-companions, lick-wimbles,
malt-wormes, vine-fretters, and other faithfuU drunkards, iirmely by these presents :
Dated the thirteenth of Scant-sober, and sealed with 0 I am sicke, and delivered
with a bowle and a broome in the presence of the ostler, the tapster, and the
chamberlaine."
®^ Your hold-heating oaths.
The MS. reads hlunderhust, and hull-halling and hold-hearing have also been
suggested. In a sermon by AV. Kethe, 1570, hull-baiting is spelt hut heating. I
believe the original text to be right. Pistol's oaths are bold and violent, and may
well be said to be bold beating, or bold and beating, all compounds of this kind
being common in Elizabethan writers. Bold-beating oaths are explained by
Capell, — " oaths utter'd with a boldness capable of beating down an antagonist, of
out facing him."
" Shield tliis vain breath ; heat at some ladies eare," Day's He of Gul s,
4to. Lond. 1633.
^'■^ I do relent.
Relent seems here to be used in the sense of, to grieve or repent. The quarto
reads recant. "Alas! it causeth to relent eche Christian hart that heareth
therof, first to consider how wickedly shee violated the commaundements of our
God," Munday's View of Sundry Examples, 1580.
3G0
NOTES TO THE SECOND ACT.
"•^ Good maid, then.
Am. AMldcr and wilder still ! I begin to be afraid of him ; pray let me go ; is
this discourse lor maids ? l\im. I, as good a milkmaid as my nurse, I'le warrant
you. — Love's Kingdom, IGCi, p. 15.
If evor Ice doe come heare againe, Ice zaid,
Chill give thee my mother vor a maid. — 3£S. Ashnole 36.
®^ You have Iron ght her into such a canaries.
Canaries is Mrs. Quickly 's blunder for, quandary.
Coach after coach.
According to Stowe, "in the year 1564, Guilliam Boonen, a Dutchman,
became the Queene's coachman, and was the first that brought the use of coaches
into England : after a while, divers great ladies, with as great jealousie of the
Queen's displeasure,
made them coaches,
and rid in them up
and downe the coun-
tries, to the great
admiration of all the
beholders ; but then,
by little and little,
they grew usuall
among the nobilitie
and others of sort,
and, within twenty
yeeres, became a
great trade of coach-
making." This ac-
count is repeated, with a few humorous additions, by Taylor the Water-Poet.
Coaches became exceedingly common towards the end of the reign of Elizabeth,
and allusions to them are very numerous. Davenant, at a later period, thus
introduces a Erenchman speaking of the coaches of London : —
" I have now left your houses, and am passing through your streets ; but, not
in a coach, for they are uneasily hung, and so narrow, that I took them for sedans
upon wheeles : nor is it safe for a stranger to use them till the quarrel be decided,
whether six of your nobles, sitting together, shall stop, and give place to as many
barrels of beer. Your city is thfe only metropolis of Europe, where there is a
wonderful dignity belonging to carts. Master Londoner ! be not so hot against
coaches : take advice from one that eats much sorrel in his broth. Can } ou be
too civil to such a singular gentry as bravely scorn to be provident ? who, when
they have no business here to employ them, nor publick pleasures to divert them,
yet even then kindly invent occasions to bring them hither, that, at your own rates,
they may change their land for your wares ; and have purposely avoided the
course study of arithmetick, lest they should be able to affront you with examining
your accompts."
The two engravings, representing the coaches of Queen Elizabeth and her
maids of honour, are copied by Mr. Eairholt from the view of Nonsuch House in
Braun's Civitates Orhis Terrariim, 1582.
There is an interesting account of coaches in Moryson's Itinerary, 1617, —
" Coaches are not to be hired any where but only at London ; and howsoever
England is for the most part plaine, or consisting of little pleasant hilles, yet the
NOTES TO THE SECOND ACT.
361
waies farre from London are so durty, as hired coach-men doe not ordinarily take
any long journies, but onely for one or two daies any way from London, the wayes
so farre being sandy and very faire, and continually kept so by labour of hands.
And, for a dayes journey, a coach with two horses used to be let for some ten
shillings the day (or, the way being short, for some eight shillings, so as the
passengers paid for the horses meat), or some fifteene shillings a day for three
horses, the coach-man paying for his horses meate. Sixtie or seventy yeeres agoe,
coaches were very rare in England, but at this day pride is so farre increased, as
there be few gentlemen
of any account (I meane
elder brothers), who
have not their coaches,
so as the streetes of
London are almost stop-
ped up with them. Yea,
they who onely respect
coralinesse and profit,
and are thought free
from pride, yet have
coaches, because they
find the keeping thereof
more commodious and
profitable then of horses, since two or three coach-horses will draw foure or five
persons, besides the commodity of carrying many necessaries in a coach
In Ireland, since the end of the civill warre, some lords and knights have brought
in coaches to Dublin, but they are not generally used, neither are there any to bee
hired, though the waies be most plaine and generally good for coaches."
And in such alligant terms.
So the physitian tooke the water, which having put into an urinall and
viewed it, hee said. My friend, thy wife is very weake : truly, quoth hee, I thinke
shee bee in a presumption : a consumption thou wouldst say, said the physitian :
I told you before (the fellow replyed) that I doe not understand your allegant
speeches. Well, quoth the Doctor, doth thy wife keepe her bed ? No, truly, sir,
said hee, shee sold her bed a fortnight since. — Taylor s Workes, 1630.
She leads a very frampold life icith him.
Frampold, vexatious, troublesome, peevish. ^'Frampald or frampard, fretful,
peevish, cross, froward ; as froward comes from from, so may frampard" Ray's
South and East Country Words, ed. 1691, p. 98. Kennett, MS. Lansd. 1033,
gives it as a Sussex word in the same sense ; but it now seems to be obsolete,
although possibly still preserved in the term frump, a sour, ill-natured person, and
in the provincial verb frummicate, to give one's self airs, to be uneasy or fretful
at trifles. Nash, says Steevens, in his Praise of the Eed Herring, 1599, speaking
of Leander, says, " the churlish frampold waves gave him his belly-full of fisli-
broth." It is spelt differently in the London Prodigal, — " nay, but an you be
w^ell avisen, it were not good, by this vrampolness and vrowardness." In Charron's
Book of Wisdom, that gift is mentioned as " a kind of sullen, frowning and
frampole austerity in opinions;" and Steevens quotes the Eoaring Girle, IGll, —
" are we fitted with good phrampell jades ?" In Hacket's Life of Williams,
observes Johnson, ci, frampiil man signifies a peevish troublesome fellow.
In the Inner Temple Masque, by Middleton, 1619: " — 'tis so frampole,
the Puritans wiU never yield to it." Again, in the Blind Beggar of Bethnal-
II. 46
3G2
NOTES TO THE SECOND ACT.
Green, by John Day: "I think the felloAv's frampell^ &c. And, in Beanmont
and Ek'teher's AVit at Several Weapons : "Is ronipey grown so niaUipert, so
frampcl/" {Steevens.)
Mop. Wliat a goodyer aile you, mother, are you frampidl? know you not your
owne daughter? — Bays lie of (J nils,
Ev how nuich the more I see how an ill will'd and frampled was])ishness
has broken forth, to the royling and firing of the age wherein we live. — N. Fairfax,
Bulk and Selvedge of the JForld, 1G74<.
Mislress Fage hath her hearty commendations to you too.
" I, and your mother, and your sister Beasse, have all in generall our hartie
commendations unto you," Letter dated 1593. "After my nioste harty com-
endations remembred unto you, very lovinge cozen, hopinge in God that you are
in good healthe, as I was at the makinge hereof," Letter, 1G12.
Goos. Not we, sir ; you are a captaine, and a leader. Fad. Besides, thou art
commended for the better man, for thou art very Commendations it selfe, and
Captaine Commendations. Foal. Why, what tho I be Captaine Commendations ?
Fad. Why, and Ca])tain Commendations is hartie commendations ; for captaines
are hartie I am sure, or else hang them. Foul. Why, what if I bee Harty
Commendations ? come, come, sweete knights, leade tlie way. Fad. 0 Lorde, sir,
alwaies after my Hartie Commendations. Foul. Nay, then, you conquer mee with
president, by the autenticall forme of all Justice letters. — Sir Gyles Goosecappe
Knight, IGOG.
" He sends you hearty commendations, plurima salute te impertit," Eamiliares
Colloquendi Eormuloe, 1G78.
Surely, I thinJc you have charms.
Mrs. Quickly means love-charms. The quarto reads, — " by my troth, I think
you work by inchantments." Newton, in his Tryall of a Man's owne Selfe, 12mo.
Lond. 1G02, p. 116, ap. Brand, enquires, under Breaches of the seventh
Commandment, " Whether by any secret sleight, or cunning, as drinkes, drugges,
medicines, charmed potions, amatorious philters, figures, cliaracters, or any such
like paltering instruments, devises, or practises, thou hast gone about to procure
others to doate for love of thee."
'''' That were a jest, indeed!
" 0 Lord, sir, that were a jest, indeed," Every Man in his Humour. " That
is a jest, indeed," London Prodigal, 1G05. " Marry, there were a jest, indeed,"
Cupid's Whirligig, 1G07. "i/^^r. But cannot you tell what it is?—Buf. That
were a fine jest, indeed," Goughe's Queen, 1653. " Tliat were a ^nejest indeed,"
Cotgrave's Wits Interpreter, 1671, p. 20.
Not have her will, that were a jest indeed!
AVho sayes she shall not, if I be dispos'd ?
HoiD to Choose a good Wife from a Bad, 1631^.
Tahe all, pay all.
This was proverbial. "Take all and pay all" is amongst the proverbs com-
municated bv Mr. A. Paschall of Chedsey, co. Somerset, in Ray's English
Proverbs, ed."lG78, p. 349.
I had keys of all, kept all, receiv'd all, had money in my purse, spent what I
would, went abroad when I Avould, came home when 1 would, and did all what I
would. 0, my sweet husband ! I shall never have the like. — The Faritan.
This punh is one of Cupid's carriers.
" Dr. Parmer observes that the word pimh has been unnecessarily altered to
NOTES TO THE SECOND ACT.
3G3
pinh. In Ben Jonson's Bartholomew Eair, justice Overdo says of the pig-
woman; — She hath been before me, pttn/c, pinnace, and bawd, any time these two
and tAventy years." — Steevens, The words pink and punk would seem to have
been occasionally interchangeable.
These gentlemen know better
To cut a caper than a cable.
Or board a pink in the burdels, than a pinnace at sea.
Glapthorne's Ladies Friviledge, 1640.
"° Up with your fights.
" Ornaments, top armour, are cut out of red kersey and tabled, or any thing
such as old cloathes, sails cut up against the enemy's small arms : the word is now
obsolete. In the fore part of a ship and the shrouds it is called top armour or
armings, in the hinder it is called abarricado. In Boteler's Sea Dialogues, 1688,
I find the term thus explained : — Aders, which are those you term the waste
clothes Capt. by a general appellation all the cloathes which are hung about the
cage work ; that is, the very uppermost works of a ship's huU are called waste
cloathes, and the use of them is to shade the men from being seen by the enemy."
— Croft. So, Dryden, —
"Whoever saw a noble sight.
That never view'd a brave sea fight,
Hang up your bloody colours in the air,
Up with your fights, and your nettings prepare.
The following is extracted from Steevens : — So, in Heywood and Eowley's
comedy, called Fortune by Land and Sea : " — display'd their ensigns, iip uilh all
their feights, their matches in their cocks," &c. Again, in the Christian turned
Turk, 1612 : "Lace the netting and let down the fghts, make ready the shot,"
&c. Again, in the Fair Maid of the West, 1615 :
Then now up with yottr fghts, and let your ensigns,
Blest with St. George's cross, play with the winds.
Again, in Beaumont and Fletcher's Yalentinian :
while I were able to endure a tempest,
And bear my fghts out bravely, till my tackle
Whistled i' th' wind—.
This passage may receive an additional and perhaps a somewhat different
illustration from Smith's Sea Grammar, 4to. 1627. In p. 58 he says: "But if
you see your chase strip himself into fghting sailes, that is, to put out his colours
in the poope, his fiag in the maine top, his streamers or pendants at the end of his
yards' arms, &c., provide yourself to fight." Again, p. 60 : " Thus they use to
strip themselves into their short sailes, or fghting sailes, which is only the fore
sail, the maine and fore top sailes, because the rest should not be fired or spoiled ;
besides, they would be troublesome to handle, hinder our sights and the using of
our armes : he makes ready his close fghts fore and aft." In a former passage,
p. 58, he has said that " a ship's close fghts are small ledges of wood laid crosse one
another, like the grates of iron in a prison's window, betwixt the maine mast and
the fore mast, and are called gratings or nettings," &c. [Steevens.) Coles, in his
EngHsh Dictionary, 1676, explains fghts to be, "coverts, any places where men
may stand unseen, and use their arms in a ship."
"A pink," says Warburton, " is a vessel of the small crafts employed as a carrier
(and so called) for merchants. Fletcher uses the word in his Tamer Tamed :
NOTES TO THE SECOND ACT.
This p'liil', tills ])aintc(l foist, tliis cockle-boat,
To hani>' her Ju/hls out, and defy me, friends !
A well known man of war. —
"As to the word /y///6\ both in the text and in the quotation, it was a common
sea-term. Sir Richard Hawkins, in his Voyages, p. C6, says : ' For once we
cleared her deck, and had we been able to have spared but a dozen men, doubtless
we had done with her what we would ; for she had no close Ji(jhts' "
'^^ Or ocean tclielm them all !
Vlielm, to bury, to overwhelm. " Coined silver &c., I ichelmed altogether in a
dry ditch," Painter's Palace of Pleasure, 1567. " The Arabian ])rince is ichelnde
an\idst the sands," AVarres of Cyrus King of Persia, 159-i. " The most illumina-
ting tapers of religion and learning are wlielnid under a busliell of obstinacy and
io-norauce," Golden Eleece, 1G57.
"^^^ Sent your worship a morning's draught of sack.
In Shakespeare's time, and long previously, it was usual to take a " morning
draught" of ale, beer, wine, or spirits ; and it was, moreover, then common for
persons to commence an acquaintance by presents of liquor. Before the close of
the seventeenth century, coffee had, to some extent, replaced the other drinks
as far as regards their use at an early period of the day. Howell, speaking of
coifee in 1659, observes, — "But, besides the exsiccant quality it hath to dry up
the crudities of the stomach, as also to comfort the brain, to fortifie the sight with
its steem, and prevent dropsies, gouts, the scurvie, together with the spleen and
hypocondriacall windes (all which it doth without any violence or distemper at all),
I say, besides all these qualities, 'tis found already that this coffee-drink hath
caused a greater sobriety among the nations : for whereas formerly apprentices
and clerks, with others, used to take their mornings draught in ale, beer, or wine,
which by the dizziness they cause in the brain, make many unfit for businesse,
they use now to play the good- fellows in this wakefull and civill drink." One of
the earliest allusions to the morning's draught occurs in the old English metrical
romance of Sir Eglamour of Artois, in the following lines : —
Bryght helmes he fonde strawed wyde.
As men of armys had loste ther pryde.
That wyckyd bore had them slayne !
To a clyfe of ston than rydyth hee,
And say the bore come fro the see,
Hys morne-drynJce he had tane.
In Rowlands' Knave of Harts, there is a somewhat curious story related
respecting a lady's morning's-draught of muscadine : —
A morning's draught one was enjoyn'd for to allow his wife,
Condition'd in her widdow-hood ; and he t' avoide all strife
Kept covenant : unwilling tho, for every day a cup
Must be prepared of muscadine, against her rising up.
And that she emptied all alone, (her husband had no share,)
Telling him, she great reason had to see the bottome bare,
Because there was a crucifixe graven within the bowle :
And to behold that image, was a comfort to her soule.
He, hearing this, taketh the cuppe, and to a gold-smith goes,
Willing him race that picture out, and in the stead, bestowes
The doing of a divel's face, with homes most largely fraught,
Conveying it in place againe, to serve the morning's draught.
NOTES TO THE SECOND ACT.
365
His wife next day doth take the same, according to her use ;
And filhng out the wine therein, perceiving the abuse,
Smiles to her selfe, then drinkes it off, and fils it out againe,
And that she turneth likewise downe, in a carowsing vaine.
Hold wife (quoth he), you drinke too deepe, your lowance you exceed :
You see no Saviour's picture now, and therefore pray take heed.
I know it very well (said she), — My husband, thinke not strange;
My cup hath alter'd fashion now, and that doth make me change.
In place of Christ, I doe behold a divell sterne and grim.
Which makes me drinke a double draught, even in despight of him.
Sure, wife (quoth he) I like not this : the picture shall be mended :
Eor if you spite che divell thus, my purse will be offended.
The custome of drinking in the mornings fasting, a large draught of white
wine, or of Rhenish wine, or of beere, hath almost with all men so farre prevailed,
as that they judge it a principall meanes for the preservation of their health ;
whereas in very deed, it is, being without respect had of the state or constitution
of the body, inconsideratly used, the occasion of much hurt and discommodity.
For convening therefore of this vaine custome, I answer, that the drinking of a
large draught fasting of the aforesaid wines, or stale beere, if it shall be more
agreeable to the body, is only good for them that are of an hot and dry constitution,
or subject to obstructions, so they be not of a very cold and moyst temperature,
that the siccity of the stomack may be mitigated, and any slimie or obstructive
humor residing in it, in the liver, veines or reines, removed and cleansed aAvay :
which the taking of a large draught fasting of stale beere, or of one of the foresaid
wines, especially if a lymmon be macerated in it, as aforesaid, do notably performe.
Eut this may not so generally be taken, as that it is allowable for every one that hath
an hot and dry state of body, to drink a large draught mornings fasting : for it is
not convenient for such as are very rheumatick, though they are of dry temperature
of body, because it will greatly encrease rheumes ; but to such, a small draught, to
temper only the siccity of the stomack, is to be exhibited. And here it may be
demanded, whether or no it be good to drink stronger wines fasting, as muskadell,
malmsey, or such like : I know that it is utterly forbidden, as pernicious to the
body, which I likwise averre, in respect of the younger sort of people ; but for the
aged, in whom the radicall moysture and heat is decayed, I deeme it to be very
wholsome, especially in cold countries, and in the cold times of the yeere, because they
are very comfortable and restorative : wherefore to drink mornings fasting, a
draught of muskadell or malmsey, and also to eat tosts of fine manchet-bread
sopped therein, is no bad break-fast for old folkes, as I suppose. — Vernier s Via
Hecta ad Vitam Longam, 1637.
Now, gentles, I take it, here is none of you so stupid.
But that you have heard of a little god of love call'd Cupid ;
Who, out of kindness to Leander, hearing he but saw her,
This present day and hour doth turn himself to a drawer.
And because he would have their first meeting to be merry,
He strikes Hero in love to him with a pint of sherry;
Which he tells her from amorous Leander is sent her,
, Who after him into the room of Hero doth venture.
Ben Jonsous Bartliolomew Fair.
Enquire what gallants sup in the next room ; and, if they be any of your
acquaintance, do not you, after the city fashion, send them in a pottle of wine, and
your name, sweetened in two pitiful papers of sugar, with some filthy apology
crammed into the mouth of a drawer. — Dechers GiilVs Hornhooh, 1G09.
3G6
NOTES TO THE SECOND ACT.
Ecn: Johnson -was at a tavcrne, and in comes Eislioppc Corbett (but not so
tlicn) into the next roonie ; Een: Johnson calls for a quart of raw wine, gives it
the tapster : Sirrha, sayes he, carry this to the gentleman in the next chamber, and
tell liim I twnificc my service to him; the fellow did so, and in those words:
I'riend, sayes Dr. Corbett, I thanke him for his love ; but pr'y thee tell hym from
me, hee 's mistaken, for sacrifices are allwayes hurut. — 31S. Ilarl. G395, stories
collected by U Estrange.
Consume what I have gather'd, at a breakfast
Or morning's draught? — Shirleijs JFedding, 1G29.
A handsome yong fellow having scene a play at the Curtaine, comes co
AVilliam l{owly after the play was done, and intreated him, if his leisure served,
that hee might give him a pottle of wine to bee better acquainted with him. —
Moderne Jests and Witty Jeeres, p. G4.
Then he comes ruflPeling, ere his braynes be steddy,
AVith drinking sacke, and claret over night.
TJntrust, unbutton'd, and scarce halfe made ready,
Of his new mistris for to have a sight,
Hoping in time to be thy favorite.
And needs must feele if that thy brests are soft,
And give thee in thy bed thy mornings draft.
Cranley's Amanda, 4to. Lond. 1635.
AAYelch minister being to preach on a Sunday, certaine merry companions
had got him into a celler to drinke his mornings draught, and in the meane while
stole his notes out of his pocket. Hee nothing doubting, went to the church into
the pulpit, where having ended his prayer, he mist at last his notes, wherefore hee
saide ; My good neighbours, I have lost my sermon, but I will reade you a chaptier
in Job shall be worth two of it. — Gratia Liidoites, 1G88, p. 24.
So, so, Catalina ; I will put your morning's draught in my pocket. — Shirley's
Maid's Revenge, 1G39.
Revenge, more sweet then muscadine and egges,
To day I will embrace thee ! Healths in bloud
Are souldiers mornings-dravghts. — Jealous Lovers, 1G46.
This made me prepare to receive it with a wider throat than the singing-man
that swallowed a drown'd mouse in his mornings-dratight. — The Comical History
of Francion, 1G55.
Fail. No, I vow to — , "Will, I have a better opinion of thy wit, than to
think thou would'st come to so little purpose.- — Bih. Pretty well that : No, no ;
my business is to drink my mornings- draught in sack with you. — Fail. AVill not
ale serve the turn, "Will ? — Bih. I had too much of that last night ; I was a little
disguis'd, as they say. — The Wilde Gallant, 16G9.
Merr. I will leave my mornings draught of mum and wormwood, and breakfast
hereafter u])on new laid eggs, amber-greece and gravy. — Bell. Trouble not yourself,
I will breakfast before I come to you, and sup heartily before I go to bed. —
Bellamira, 1G87.
I came to the Three Tuns before Guildhall, where the general had quartered
two nights before. I entered the tavern with a servant and portmanteau, and
asked for a room, which I had scarce got into but wine followed me as a presott
from some citizens, desiring leave to drink their morning's draught with me. — Life
of Monh, ap. Reed.
NOTES TO THE SECOND ACT.
3G7
He surely had not drunk his mornings dranglit.
To clear his eyes, or else his sight was naught :
Or having drunk too much, his sight did trouble,
He could not see at all, or all things double. — Poor Bohin, 1693.
A toast, and pot of ale I think,
Is very good for mornings drinh.
Or sugar mixed in March bear.
That's stout and strong, and stale, and clear. — Poor Bohin, 1712.
Conf. Most un facetious kinsman, I thank you most obsequiously, I cannot
wish him into better hands for his improvement, and therefore readily embrace
your kind offer ; but I hope you are well, kinsman, by reason your countenance
looks as if you had drank verjuice for your mornings draught. — The Behearsaly
1718.
Followed hy Ford.
The modern editors read, "with Eord disguised;'" but the correctness of this
direction may be questioned ; even although he afterwards asks Ealstalf, — " Do
you know Eord?" I apprehend that this question was one arising from an
excessive anxiety, presumed naturally to exist in one of Ford's jealous disposition ;
not that it implies the existence of a disguise in feature or dress.
"'"^ Give lis leave, drawer.
The accompanying engraving
of a drawer at an inn, is taken
from a black-letter ballad of the
seventeenth century preserved in
the Hoxburghe collection in the
British Museum.
''^ Not to change you.
That is, not to put you to any
expence. — Br. Johnson.
"'^ If you toill help to hear it.
The MS. reads,—'' If you will
help me to bear it."
''^ There is a gentlewoman in
this town.
The conduct of this is entirely
changed in the manuscript men-
tioned at p. 238, which reads as
follows ; —
" Ford. There is a gentleman
in this town, his name is Eord,
whose wife 1 have long loved.
" Fal. Well, sir.
" Ford. And, I protest to you, bestowed much on her."
'^^ To hiow what she icould have given.
In other words, to ascertain what kind of presents she would prefer to be
given to her.
''^ Pursuing that that flies, and flying what pursues.
Ben Jonson, Workes, ed. 1616, p. 827, has a song, " That women are but
men's shaddowes," commencing, —
3CS
NOTES TO THE SECOND ACT.
Eollow a sliaddow, it still flics you ;
Seeiuo to ilye it, it will pursue :
So court a niistris, slice dcnyes you ;
Let licr alone, slice will court you.
Say, arc not women truely, then,
Stil'd but the sliaddowcs of us men ?
This song- is also inserted in Wits llccreations, 1640, and in Bcedome's Poems
Divine and Humane, lOil. In the latter work there is a reply, "Women are
not men's sliadowes," which commences as follows : —
The sunne absented, sliadowes then
Cease to put on the formes of men.
But wives, their husbands absent, may
Bcare best their formes (they being away).
Say, are not women falsly then
Stil'd but the shadowes of us men.
The lines in the text, observes Malone, have much the air of a quotation, but
I know not whether they belong to any contemporary writer. In Elorio's Second
Eruites, 1591, are the following verses, quoted by Malone:
Di donna e, et sempre fu natura,
Odiar clii I'ama, e chi non I'ama cura.
Again : ,
Sono simili a crocodiUi,
Chi per prender I'huomo, piangono, e preso la devorano,
Chi le fugge seguono, e chi le segue fuggono.
Thus translated by Elorio :
they are like crocodiles,
They w^eep to winne, and wonne they cause to die,
FolloiD men flying, and men following fly. — Malone.
" Thus also in a sonnet by Queen Elizabeth, preserved in the Ashmolean
Museum at Oxford :
" My care is like my sTiaddowe in the sunne.
Follows me fliinge, flies when I pursue it." — Steevens.
Never 'till now unkinde, unkinde as death.
Still slow and tedious unto those that seek't ;
Elying away from her pursuers eye,
And with all speed pursuing them that flie.
The Wizard, an unpublished drama, c. 1640.
By mistaking the place ichere I erected it.
By the law of England, a person who built on ground to Avhich he could not
prove his title, forfeited all right to the house thereon erected.
Of great admittance.
That is, says Steevens, admitted into aU, or the greatest companies. Compare
Ben Jonson, ii. 494.
World, I have two requests to thee, which if thou grant mee, I will never
thanke thee : tlie first is good cloathes, for those beare a monstrous sway, because
I have occasion to speake with great men, and without good cloathes (like a golden
sheath to a leaden blade) there is no admittance. — Taylor s Workes, 1630.
Bame. I must admit her ; these ladies are so inward with our trickes, there's no
good to be done upon them : w^ell. Madam, your admittance is open ; will you
follow Bay's He of Gulls, 1633.
NOTES TO THE SECOND ACT.
369
The folly of my soul dares not present itself
The Perkins MS. reads suit ioYsoul ; thus commented upon by Mr. Smibert : —
"A most lame and im2)otent substitution, certainly. Ford admits the folly of soul
freely, that made him pursue such a suit ; but he is not likely to have ever spoken
of ' presenting the folly of his suit' to its object. At least, to use more correct
language, the dramatist is not likely to have made him so speak. But we ever
forget, when talking of the characters of Shakespeare, that the objects of discourse
are creatures of the imagination, and therein we pay him unconsciously the highest
conceivable tribute."
^'^ She is too hright to he loohed against.
Nimium lubricus aspici. — Horace, ap. Malone.
8* ^rom the icard of her purity.
That is, says Steevens, the defence of it. "AVhat Eord means to say is,"
observes M. Mason, " that if he could once detect her in a crime, he should then
be able to drive her from those defences, with which she would otherwise ivard
off his addresses, such as her purity, her reputation, her marriage vow, &c."
Hang him, poor cucholdy hiave !
He was well natured, but soon angry, calling his servants bastards and cucJwldly
knaves, in one of which he often spoke truth to his own knowledge, and sometimes
in both, tho' of the same man. He lived to a hundred, never lost his eye-sight,
but always writ and read without spectacles, and got on horseback without help.
Until past fourscore he rid to the death of a stag as well as any. — Character of a
County Gentleman, in the Earl of Shafteshury s Memoirs.
The I'cy of the cucholdy rogue's coffer.
The MS. reads, — " the key to the cuckoldy rogue's coffer." Eor harvest-home,
the early quarto has randevomes.
Hang him, mechanical salt-hutter rogue!
I cannot discover the signification of this latter epithet, unless it mean one who,
pursuing a sordid economy, used salt butter instead of fresh. — M. Mason.
I tfill aggravate his style.
That is, add to his titles. [Tliis play is full of allusions to cuckoldism, which
are not always worth explanation for readers of the present day.] So, in Hej^vv^ood's
Golden Age, IGll, ap. Steevens, — " I will create lords of a greater style."
Again, in Spenser's Eairy Queen, b. v. c. 2 :
As to abandon that which doth contain
Your honour's stile, that is, your warlike shield.
Amaimon sounds icell.
Amaimon and Barbason are found in the old list of devils. "Amaymon is the
chief whose dominion is on the North part of the infernal gulf," Holme's Acad.
Arm. IL i. 22 ; " Barbos is like a lion ; under him are thirty-six legions," ibid.
Among the old magicians, Amaimon was king of the AYest. " These are the
names of the kinges, Oriens, Amaimon, Paymon, J^gin," Dr. Eorman's MSS.
Barhason, icell.
Marbas, alias Barbas is a great president, and appeareth in the forme of a
mightie lion ; but at the commandement of a conjuror commetli up in the likenes
of a man, and answereth fullie as touching anie thing which is hidden or secret :
he bringeth diseases, and cureth them ; he promotetli wisedome, and the knowledge
II. 47
370
KOTES TO THE SECOND ACT.
of lucclianicall arts, or liandicrafts ; lie cliaiigcUi men into other shapes, and nnder
his j)i'esidencie or g-ovcrnenient are thirtie six legions of divcls conteined. — Scofs
DiscuL'crie of WilclicraJ't, 1581'.
But cuckold! u-ittol-cuchold!
" Wittal, is a cuckold that witts all or knows all : that is, knoAvs himself to be
so, and is contented witli it." — Ladies Dictionori/, 1091. A. S, wit-an. "A
wittall cannot be a cuckold : for a cuckolde is -wronged by liis wife, which a wittaU
cannot bee ; for volenti noii Jit injuria,'' the Mountebank's Mask.
A cuckold thinks liiniselfe safe if he can avoide the name of loiitall. For hee
thinks men may conceiye much water goes by the mill, which the miller
knowes not of; and an honest man may bee ignorant of his Ayives wickednesse;
but to give way to filthinesse, and yeeld to a Avives prostitution, is a beastialitie
contrary to nature and reason. — Bich Cabinet furnished with Varietie of Excellent
Discrijitions, IGIG.
I gave it, that thou might'st not be a witall,
He an adulterer, 1 a property. — TJie Slight ed Maid, p. 36.
He beareth Sable, a IFittals face, couped at the shoulders, proper : Horns
Or. This may very well be a contented cuckcold, seeing his horns are made
of gold. Argent on a bend Sable, 3 Wittalls Eaces Argent, is born by the
name of JJ hittall, WittaU or AVitwell, in Yorkshier. — Holme, 1688.
Compare Banks's Vertue Betray'd, 1682, p. 21.
In a case in our law reports, quoted by Mr. B. Field, Holt, C. J., said : —
" To call a man a cncl'old was not an ecclesiastical slander, but wittal was, for it
imports his knowledge of, and consent to, his wife's adultery." — Smith v. Wood,
2 Salkeld, 692. At the end of the present speech, the MS. reads again, "cuckold !
M'ittoU-cuckold !"
The devil himself hath not such a name.
The following passage is here added in the cpiarto : — "And they may hang
hats here, and napkins here, upon my homes." In the time of Shakespeare, hats
were generally hung on horns fixed to the wall.
/ will rather trust a Fleming imth my lutter.
The said prentise entring by and by into his maisters printing-house, and
finding a Duchman there working at the presse, straight stept unto him and
snatching the bals out of his hands, gave him a good cuffe on the eare, and sayd :
hy, how now, Butter-hoxe, cannot a man so soone turne his backe to fetch his
niaister a messe of mustard, but you to step straight into his place? — Copley s
Wits, Fits, and Fancies, 1614.
I could wish my lines might please like cheese to a Welchman, hitter to a
Flemine, usquebaugh to an Irishman, or honey to a beare : To conclude, I wish
best to the Protestant, I pitty the Papist, praying for the perseverance of the one,
and a reformation of the other. Meane time, my boat, like a barbers shop, is
readie for all commers, bee they of what Keligion they wiU, paving their Eare. —
Taylors WorJces, 1630.
Parson Hugh the Welchman with my cheese.
The way to make a Welchman thirst for bliss.
And say his prayers daily on his knees ;
Is to persuade him that most certain 'tis
The moon is made of nothing but green cheese:
NOTES TO THE SECOND ACT.
371
And he'll desire of God no greater boon,
But place in heaven to feed upon the moon.
Taylor, ap. Grey, i. 10 G.
Eleven d clock the hour.
" It is necessary for the business of the piece that EalstafF should be at Ford's
house before his return. Hence our author made him name the later hour. See
Act III. sc. 2: — 'The clock gives me my cue; — there I shall find Falstajf.''
When he says above, ' I shall prevent this,'' he means, not the meeting, but his
wife's effecting her purpose." — 31alone.
^'^ Be herring is no dead, so as I vill hill him.
"Is shee quite dead? — Cice. Dead as a herring, sir," Totenliam Court, 1638.
"'Tis her flurry; she's as dead as a herring," MS. ballad.
Thy pwito, thy stock, thy reverse, S,'c.
Stock, a corruption of the Italian stoccata, "a foyne, a thrust, a stoccado given
in fence," Elorio, ed. 1598. Ptmto is also Italian.
But in what fence-schoole, of what master, say.
Brave pearl of souldiers, learn d thy hands to play
So at so sundry weapons, such passados.
Such thrusts, such foyns, stramazos, and stoccados? — Bii Bartas.
Now I being bound by the duello, having accepted the challenge, to seek no
advantage, l3ut even to deal with him at his own weapon, entered the lists with
him, and fighting after the old English manner without the stockados, for to foin
or strike below the girdle, we counted it base and too cowardly, after half a
score downright blows, we grew to be friends. — 3Iet. Ajax.
Is he dead, my Francisco?
That is, my Erenchman. The quarto reads, my Francoyes. {Ilalone.)
My heart of elder.
" It should be remember'd, to make this joke relish, that the elder tree has
710 heart. I suppose this expression was made use of in opposition to the common
one, heart of oak." — Steevens. It may be, however, that the phrase was conven-
tional, like " hearts of gold," &c.
"Well pumpt, my hearts of gold, who sayes amends
East and by South, West and by North she wends.
This was a weather with a witnesse here,
But now we see the skyes begin to cleare. — Taylor s Workes, 1630.
Thou art a Castilian, King- Urinal !
" Castilian and Ethiopian, like Cataian, appear in our author's time to have
been cant terms. I have met with them in more than one of the old comedies.
So, in a description of the Armada introduced in the Stately Moral of the Three
Lords of London, 1590: — 'To carry, as it were, a careless regard of these
Castilians, and their accustomed bravado.' Again : ' To parley with the ])r()ud
Castilians' I suppose Castilian Avas the cant term for Spaniard in general,"
— Steevens. " Then know, Castilian cavaleros, this," Three Ladies of London,
4to. Lond. 1590.
" I believe this was a popular slur upon the Spaniards, who were held in great
contempt after the business of the Armada. Thus we have a Treatise Parrenetical,
wherein is shewed the right Way to resist the Castilian King; and a sonnet
372
NOTES TO THE SECOND ACT.
l)rcrixc(l to Lea's Answer to the Untruths ]mblislic(l in Spain, in glorie of their
siipjwsecl Victory atchieved against our English Navie, begins : — ' Thou fond
CasdHan — and so in other phiccs," — Farmer.
" The Host, M ho, avaiUng himself of the poor Doctor's ignorance of English
l)hraseology, ap})lies to hiui all kinds of opprobrious terms, here means to call him
a cuicard. So, in the Three Lords of London, 1590:
" My lordes, what means these gallantes to performe?
Come these CasiilUan cotcards but to brave?
Do all these mountains move, to breed a mouse
" There may, however, be also an allusion to his profession, as a water-c«s^^r." —
Mcdone. The term CastiUau is also used by the Host, in the Merry Devil of
Edmonton, 1G08, the writer of which was probably famiUar with the Merry Wives
of Windsor. It is scarcely necessary to observe that the term Castilian, in Spain,
would not be at all one of re])roach.
Eut, hinc pndor ! or rather, hinc dolor ; heeres the divell ! It is not the
ratling of all this former haile-shot, that can terrific our band of Castalian pen-
men from entring into the field. — Declcers Wonderfull Yeare, IG03.
Gods a mee! What '11 you doe? Why, yong master, you are not Castalian
mad, lunatike, frantike, desperate? ha? — Jonsons Poetaster, 1602.
All sorts of compound of the epithet hully were common. Thus Bulhj-IIuff
occurs in the Ladies Dictionary, 8vo. 1694. It is unnecessary to explain why
Caius is termed Bully Stale, and King Urinal, in reference to the practice men-
tioned in this volume, p. 80; but it is worthy of remark that in the magical MS.
of Dr. Caius, there is given the following account of a process for conjuring a
spirit into a " chrystal stone, or glasse, or urynalle —
"Pro cristallo, ant urinali, aut speculo. — In the name of the Eather, ^ and of
the Son, and of the Holye Ghost, *^ Amen. I praye the heavinelye Eather, as
thou art the Maker of heavine and yearthe, and of all thiuges therin conteined, and
not onlye hast made them, but allso doist worke besides ther creation wonderfullye
in them, as well in angels and tliye celestiall sperites, as also in men, foule, fishe,
and bestes, as in other sensible thinges, as in wodes, trese, water, stones, gresse,
and herbes, bye the whiche ther operation we are movede to prayse thye holye
name, and to saye holye God and heavinelye Eather, make me nowe to perceive
and understande theye mervilous workes in this clere and puer Christall. O Lord,
thou hast promised to graunt as a mercyfull Eather all that ever I in faythe do
aske of thye dear Sonn, Jliesus Christ ouer Lord, nowe blessed Eather as thou art
the God of all trwthe I beseche the tlierfore for thye blessed Sonn Jhesus Christ
his sake to performe thye promise nowe imto me as thou especyallye lovist him,
Amen. And as thou hast givven all thinges into the handes of thye deare son
that whosoever belevithe on him shall not be destitute of anye thinge that makethe
to the preferment of thye glorye and tliye devine magistye, Evne so 0 Lord Jhesus
Christ as I intend bye thye grace the increase of thye glorye graunt me to sped of
the sight of this or those thye holye angels and messingers that now I intende bye
the grace of God and sufferance of the to adjuer in this chr. stone or glasse or
urynalle the spirite N. to appeare nowe heare before me. Graunt therfore unto
me O Lord as trulye as the Lord sawe the legion in the man, evne so graunt that
mye vile natuer, bye thye blessed deatlie, maye be restored to this perfect sight
of this thye angell, so trewlye lett thye goodnes worke with me in this puer
christall stone, or then that whensoever I adjuere of or for anye angell or spirite
unto hit I maye by thye godlye pouer be lightened to se him as truelye as thye
faythefull and trustye servaunt Moyses strykinge upon the rocke did se Avater
gushe out of the rocke, and as bye the pouer of thye divine spirite this was done.
NOTES TO THE SECOND ACT.
373
evne so likewise bye the pouer of the same spirite that I maye nowe unfaynedlye
se this s])irite N. in this puer christall stone, In the name of the Father and of the
Sonn and of the Holye Ghost, ^ Eiat! fiat! fiat!"
The three urinals, here engraved, are copied from
woodcuts on the title-page to a little tract entitled, ' Here
begynneth the seyng of Urynes of al the coloures that
urynes be of, and the Medycynes annexed to every
Uryne, very necessary for every man to knowe,' imprynted
by me Robert Wyer, dwelling in Saynt Martyns parysshe
besyde Charynge Crosse, 12mo. n. d. In Queen Eliza-
beth's Prayer-Book, there is an urinal in a woodcut of
the Physician and Death, underneath which are the
following lines. —
By thy water, I do see
Thou must away with me.
My finger itches to mahe one.
" One that stood by, his fingers ilch'd there at the plate to be," History of the
Unfortunate Daughter, n. d. This is a very common proverbial expression, but
these kind of popular phrases are so rapidly passing away, an example is given to
protect the text from the danger of alteration.
Pardon, guest justice .... But first, master guest.
Theobald, in his letters to Warburton, says, — " The Host is neither here at
home, nor Shallow his guest, as I find by any other passages. The first, I think,
should be restored from the old quarto : — ' Pardon, bully Justice ; a word,
Monsieur Mockwater;' and the other, — 'But first, Mr. Justice.'" — May not
Shallow be sojourning at the Garter, during his stay at Windsor? The old MS.
reads, in the latter instance, "Master Justice Guest." The Host is somewhat
indiscriminate in the use of his epithets. He calls Shallow, in one place,
cavalero-justice; and it may possibly be that the phrase guest-cavalier is addressed
to him, and not applied to FalstafiP.
A iDord, monsieur Mock-water.
So the old copies, the term moch-ioater being ludicrously applied to the doctor,
in allusion to the judgment of diseases from the urinal. Muck-ioater, the drain of
a dunghill, was the reading proposed by Dr. Farmer, but I cannot see that this
lection is supported by the English translation of Agrippa, 15G9, f. 145, as
supposed by Steevens.
Mock-water, the old reading, appears sufficiently intelligible ; and preferable
to Dr. Farmer's emendation, muck water : the host seems to be sneering at the
affected mystery or mockery in use with medical men, of inspecting the urine of
their patients. — M. Mason.
loi Cry d I aim? Said I well?
Cried I aim, did I give you encouragement? The phrase is common in our
old dramatists, and occurs again in this play in Act iii. sc. 3. The expression is
said to be borrowed from archery. All the old editions read, cride game, and the
quarto of 1603 has the impossible reading, — " and thou shalt wear hir cried game."
Supposing the copy read cry\l I ayme, or, rather, perhaps, cride I ame, the error
is very readily accounted for. See Douce, p. 41i ; and observations ou the phrase
374
NOTES TO THE SECOND ACT.
in the notes to King Joliu, Theobald proposed Injil (jame, that is, yon experi-
enced cock of the game. The suggestion in liie Perkins nuinuscript, curds and
cream, and Jackson's dri/'d name, are too absurd to deserve refutation.
The quarto agreeing with the folio in the two words, cried (jame, offers little if
anv argument in favour of the old reading, if it be supposed to be merely a })irali( al
work nuide up out of the genuine play. Still it is possible the ancient text may
be right, and that it means, — do I not point to the right sport for you ? This is
]\Ir. Smibert's explanation, the same critic observing that, if there be a corruption,
we should either read, — cry I game, or, cried I (jame.
J fiia<ik /)//!/■ lui/lnd a'ffifm.siruf ffu s(7n/ cf /.ivf wi//i rue^ and hi rn\ l.in i with nn khsvut
Amoft exccUenc Dlrry of the
Louers promifes t&hJs bdoued.
Toafwcet iicvv tune callfd.
Hue with we and be wy ] cue.
Tht' Ladies prudent an'werto
her Loue.
To the Ir.me cune.
T BluetDttljmeanTJbem^lloue, h
' 9nt) inciDtll all tfje^Icarurce; pjioiic,
tHooUS, 0} fteepp fJottntatneB pcetDg - '
That ValleySjGroues, Hils, and fields,
WoodsjOr Heepy Mountaines yeelds.
SLnn toe will fit tpon tTjtM^ otlxt^,
ISpfbaftoiD mwcrg to vjjftoft fallgi ^
by fliallow riuers to whofe fals,&c-
SbXi tDill make tt^tthm of Korej!,
-!3nDa ttjouCatiD fragrant J^ofcs :
>a Cap of jff lowers anb a l^irtle,
3mb?oOjc& all toitlj Icauee of f^irtle,
a Cap of Flowers and a Kir tie, &tc.
tMijicb from our p?ettp Jiambs toe pull :
faivc Imn ^ffppecg foj tl^e colli,
tMitl) buckles of ttiepureft i^oW :
faire Jitied Slippers for the cold,8(c.
Xhv (tl'i^r Bin^e^ftlDiDitl) meate,
5lp precious a2 tf)e dBo^i hot me,
fs>i)al\ on an 3iuo?p arable be,
|9 jepar'o cacfj bap fo? tbce anu mc,
Oiail on an luory ubie be,&c.
JTIje S)f)ept)car63 Ctoaines (IjaU tiatice ^ fiticj!
#D^tfjpoeligl]ieacb fai rem owning: 5"
3f tt)efe Delights tfjp -minlie migljtmooue, ^<'f 2
ifthefeddight5,&c, FINJS. **
IfraiUht ttio;ilDant)iioiiciuerepDiinf5,
^nB truth maierp %h^pli£ar&fi tonjiie i
Cf)efe p^etcp plea Cures 'in'slit ute mooue^
aro tnie U)ict) thee atif be tbp loue,
Chetc pretty pleafures, Stc
' ilBut flo\yer«(at)B,anb \Tianton jKieias,
iTrtpouacDMI inter rechninjpeelOg,
3 boiip fonpc a V|Part of ^all,
31s faiuiei fp^mg, but Co?roi>jE3 fall,
a hony tf ngne.&c.
I 2rirrie b^iucK tfie j?locI<£ from fielb *o folft,
OTlienriuecB ra^e mb Eotltes grotu colb :
aiii)]9l3Uomel (icfoniitietb &umbe,
Che reR complaine? of times to tome,
and Philomel bccommeth_,&c.
T'\)V <&o"<im(^xhv Q)om, tbp bebs of rofejj^
Chp cap, tlip 'kirtle.ano thy pofes ;
^Done b>ea3,es, focnc Uiitbcrg, foDnefo ^got <
3u foUp ripe, in reafon rotten, (ten,
foone breakesj&c,
CMljat fboiiTb pou talhe of Daintiestljen^
£Df better meate tben feruetf) men:
tbat lb Uaine, tbi55 onelp goot),
Sffi biff) (0oD Docb blf ffe nnb fetibfoj fooD.
all that li vaine,&c,
3lf pou cotilb b(t nno loue fiill b?cf oe^
; ^^pi) loyeg no no? age no neebe t,
\ ^hen tbefc beli^btgmp minbmigbtniouf^
STo ime toub tl]ee anb betljp Jiom.
then thefc dclights^&c.
' Tniited by the AITignes of Thomas symcock
Ashbe* 4: Dangcrficl/i Fac-sua.
2Z3eifoii Slreet. Coreni Sarden.
SCENE I. — A Field near Frogmore.
Filter Sir Hugh Evans and Simple.
Eca. I pray you now, good master Slender's serving-man, and
friend Simple by your name, which way have you looked for
master Caius, that calls himself doctor of physic?
Shu. Marry, sir, the Petty-ward,^ the Park -ward, every way;
Old Windsor way, and every way but the town way.
Eva. I most fehemently desire you, you will also look that
wav.
Sim. I will, sir. [Retiring.
Eca. Pless my soul!" how full of cholers I am, and trempling
of mind ! — I shall be glad if he have deceived me : — how melan-
cholies I am I I will knog his urinals about his knave's costard,
when I have good opportunities for the ork^ — pless my soul!
[Sings.
To shallow rivers,* to whose falls
Melodious birds sing madrigals ;
There will we make om* peds of roses,
And a thousand fragrant posies.
To shallow —
Mercy on me ! I have a great dispositions to cry.
Melodious birds sing madrigals : —
When as I sat in Pabylon.^ —
And a thousand vagram posies.
To shallow —
Sim. [Re-entering.'] Yonder he is coming this way, sir Hugh.
37G THE MEREY WIVES OF WINDSOB. [act iii. sc. i.
Eva. lie 's welcome :
To shallow rivers, to wliose falls, —
Heaven prosper the right ! — Wliat weapons is he ?
Sim. No weapons, sir : There comes my master, master
Shallow, and another gentleman from Frogmore, over the stile,
this way.
Eva. Pray you, give me my gown; or else keep it in your
arms.
Enter Page, Shallow, and Slender.
ShaJ. IIow now, master parson? Good morrow, good sir Hugh.
Keep a gamester from the dice, and a good student from his
hook, and it is wonderful.
SJen. Ah, sweet Anne Page!
Page. Save you, good sir Hugh !
Eva. Pless you from his mercy sake, all of you!
Shal. What! the sword and the word: do you study them
hoth, master parson?
Page. And youthful still, in your douhlet and hose, this raw
rheumatic day?
Eva. There is reasons and causes for it.
Page. We are come to you to do a good office, master
parson.
Eva. Fery well : What is it?
Page. Yonder is a most reverend gentleman, who, helike,
having received wrong by some person, is at most odds with his
own gravity and patience, that ever you saw.
Shal. I have lived fourscore years and upward ; I never heard
a man of his place, gravity, and learning, so wide of his own
respect.*^
Eva. What is he?
Page. I think you know him; master doctor Caius, the re-
nowned French physician.
Eva. Got's will, and his passion of my heart!' I had as lief
you would tell me of a mess of porridge.
Page. Why?
Eva. He has no more knowledge in Hihhocratcs and Galen, —
and he is a knave besides; a cowardly knave, as you would
desires to Idc acquainted withal.
Page. I warrant you, he 's the man should fight with him.
Slen. O, sweet Anne Page!
ACT in. sc. I.] THE MEEEY WIVES OE WINDSOR.
377
Shal. It appears so, by his weapons : — Keep them asunder ; —
here comes doctor Caius.
Enter Host, Caius, a7id Rugby.
Page. Nay, good master parson, keep in your weapon.
Shal. So do you, good master doctor.
Host. Disarm them, and let them question; let them keep
their limbs whole, and hack our Englisb.
Cains. I pray you let-a me speak a word vit your ear; Vere-
fore vill you not meet-a me?
Eva. Pray you, use your patience : in good time.
Caius. By gar, you are de coward, de Jack dog, John ape !
Eva. Pray you, let us not be laughing-stogs to other men's
humours ; I desire you in friendship, and I will one way or other
make you amends : — I will knog your urinal about your knave's
cogscomb, for missing your meetings and appointments.^
Cains. Diable! — Jack Rugby, — mine /tost de Jai'terre, have I
not stay for him, to kill him? have I not, at de place I did
appoint?
Eva. As I am a Christians soul, now, look you, this is the
place appointed; I '11 be judgment by mine host of the Garter.
Host. Peace, I say, Gallia and Gaul;^ French and Welsh;
soul-curer and body-curer.
Caius. Ay, dat is very good? excellent!
Host. Peace, I say; hear mine host of the Garter. Am I
politic? am I subtle? am I a Machiavel? Sball I lose my
doctor? no; he gives me the potions, and the motions. Shall
I lose my parson, my priest, my sir Plugh? no; he gives me
the proverbs and the noverbs. — Give me thy hand, terrestrial;^''
so: — Give me thy hand, celestial; so. — Boys of art, I have
deceived you both; I have directed you to wrong places; your
hearts are mighty, your skins are whole, and let burnt sack be
the issue. — Come, lay their SAVords to pawn: — Follow me, lads
of peace ; follow, follow, follow.
Shal. Trust me, a mad host : — Follow, gentlemen, follow.
Slen. O, sweet Anne Page!
[Exeimt Shallow, Slender, Page, and Host.
Caius. Ila! do I perceive dat? have you make-a de sot of us?
ha, ha!
Eva. This is well; he bas made us his vlouting-stog." — I desire
you that we may be friends; and let us knog our prains together,
n. 48
378
THE MEKUY WIVES OE AVINDSOK [act iii. sc. ii.
to be rcvciig;e on tins same scall/" scurvy, cogging companion,
the host of the Garter.
Cains. By gar, with all niy heart; he promise to bring me
Avhere is Anne Page; by gar, he deceive me too.
isVrt. Well, I will smite his noddles: — Pray you, follow.
[Exeunt.
SCENE II.— Thames Street, Windsor.
Fnter Mistress Page and Robin.
3Irs. Page. Nay, keep your way, little gallant ; you were wont
to be a follower, but now you are a leader: Whether had you
rather lead mine eyes, or eye your master's heels?
Roh. I had rather, forsooth, go before you like a man, than
follow him like a dwarf.
Mrs. Page. O you are a flattering boy; now, I see you '11 be
a courtier.
Enter Ford.
Ford. Well met, mistress Page : Whither go you ?
Mrs. Page. Truly, sir, to see your wife; Is she at home?
Ford. Ay; and as idle as she may hang together, for want
of company. I think if your husbands were dead, you two
would marry.
Mrs. Page. Be sure of that, — two other husbands.
Ford. Where had you this pretty weathercock ?
Mrs. Page. I cannot tell w4iat the dickens his name is
my husband had him of : What do you call your knight's name,
sirrah ?
Roh. Sir John Falstaff.
Ford. Sir John Falstaff I
3Irs. Page. He, he ; I can never hit on 's name. — There is
such a league between my good man and he ! — Is your wife at
home, indeed?
Ford. Indeed, she is.
Mrs. Page. By your leave, sir : — I am sick, till I see her.
[Eoceunt Mistress Page and Robin.
Ford. Has Page any brains? hath he any eyes? hath he any
thinking ? Sure they sleep ; he hath no use of them. Why,
this boy w ill carry a letter twenty mile,^* as easy as a cannon
will shoot point-blank twelve score. He pieces out his wife's
inclination ; he gives her folly, motion and advantage : and now
she 's going to my wife, and Falstaff 's boy with her. \ man
ACT III. SC. II.] THE MEEEY WIVES OE WINDSOR.
379
may hear this shower sing in the wind — and FalstafF's boy
with her ! — Good plots ! — they are laid : and our revolted
wives share damnation together. Well ; I will take him, then
torture my wife, pluek the borrowed veil of modesty from the
so-seeming mistress Page, divulge Page himself for a secure and
wilful Actaeon ; and to these violent proceedings all my neigh-
bours shall cry aim. [Clock strikes.^ The clock gives me my
cue, and my assurance bids me search ; There I shall find
Falstaff : I shall be rather praised for this than mocked ;
for it is as positive as the earth is firm, that Falstaff is there ; I
will go.
Filter Page, Shallow, Slender, Host, Sir Hugh Evans,
Caius, and Rugby.
Shallow, Page, Sfc. Well met, master Ford.
Ford. Trust me, a good knot: I have good cheer at home ;
and I pray you all go with me.
Shal. I must excuse myself, master Ford.
Slen. And so must I, sir ; we have appointed to dine with
mistress Anne, and I would not break with her for more money
than I '11 speak of.
Shal. W^e have lingered^^ about a match between Anne
Page and my cousin Slender, and this day we shall have
our answer.
Slen. I hope I have your good will, father Page.
Parje. You have, master Slender : I stand wholly for you : —
but my wife, master doctor, is for you altogether.
Caius. Ay, be gar ; and de maid is love-a-me : my nursh-a
Quickly tell me so mush.
Host. What say you to young master Fenton ? he capers, he
dances ; he has eyes of youth ; he writes verses, he speaks
holiday, he smells April and May:^" he will carry 't; he will
carry 't; 't is in his buttons he will carry 't.
Pafje. Not by my consent, I promise you. The gentleman is
of no having; he kept company with the wild prince and Poins;
he is of too high a region; he knows too much. No, he shall
not knit a knot'^ in his fortunes witli the finger of my substance;
if he take her, let him take her simply; the wealth I have waits
on my consent, and my consent goes not that way.
Ford. I beseech you, heartily, some of you go home with me
to dinner : besides your cheer, you shall have sport : I will show
380 THE MEERY WIVES OE WINDSOll. [act iti. sc. hi.
you a monster. — blaster doctor, you shall go ; — so shall you,
master Pa<>-e ; — and you, sir Ilug-h.
S/ial. AVell, fare you well : — we shall have the freer wooino*
at master Page's. \_J'lrei(iif Shallow and Slender.
(jfiffs. Go home, John llughy; I eome anon. \_Eoiit Rugby.
Ilosf. Farewell, my hearts: I will to my honest knight
Falstaff, and drink eanary with liim."^ \_KTlt Host.
Foi'd. [_Aside.'] I think I shall drink in pipe-wine"^ first with
him ; I '11 make him dance. Will you go, gentles ?
All. Have with you, to see this monster. [Exeunt.
SCENE III.— ^ Room in Ford's House.
Enter Mrs. Ford and Mrs. Page.
Mrs. Ford, mat, John I What, Rohert !
Mrs. Page. Quickly, quickly: Is the huck-basket —
Mrs. Ford. I warrant — What, Robin, I say!
Enter Servants, ivith a buck-basket.
Mrs. Page. Come, come, come.
Mr's. Ford. Here, set it down.
3Irs. Page. Give your men the charge; we must be brief.
3Irs. Ford. Marry, as I told you before, John, and Robert, be
ready here hard by in the brew-house ; and when I suddenly
call you, come forth, and, without any pause or staggering, take
this basket on your shoulders : that done, trudge with it in all
haste, and carry it among the whitsters"* in Datchet mead,
and there empty it in the muddy ditch, close by the Thames
side.
Mrs. Page. You will do it ?
3Irs. Ford. I have told them over and over ; they lack no
direction : Be gone, and come when you are called.
[Exeunt Servants.
Mrs. Page. Here comes little Robin.
Enter Robin.
Mrs. Ford. How now, my eyas-musket?^" what news with
you?
Rob. My master, sir John, is come in at your back-door,
mistress Ford ; and requests your company.
3Irs. Page. You little Jack-a-Lent, have you been true to us?
ACT III. SC. III.] THE MERRY WIVES OE WINDSOR.
381
Rob. Ay, I '11 be sworn : My master knows not of your being
here, and hath threatened to put me into everlasting liberty, if
I tell you of it; for he swears, he'll turn me away.
Mrs. Page. Thou 'rt a good boy ; this secrecy of thine shall be
a tailor to thee, and shall make thee a new doublet and hose.
I '11 go hide me.
Mrs. Ford. Do so : — Go tell thy master I am alone. Mistress
Page, remember you your cue. \_Exit Robin.
3Irs. Page. I warrant thee ; if I do not act it, hiss me !
[Exit Mistress Page.
Mrs. Ford. Go to, then ; we '11 use this unwholesome humidity,
this gross watery pumpion. We '11 teach him to know turtles
^26
om jays.
Enter Sir John Falstaff.
Fal. Have I caught thee, my heavenly jewel?''^ Why, now let
me die, for I have lived long enough; this is the period of my
ambition. O this blessed hour!
Mrs. Ford. O sweet sir John!
Fal. Mistress Ford, I cannot cog, I cannot prate,^^ mistress
Ford. Now shall I sin in my wish: I would thy husband were
dead. I '11 speak it before the best lord, I would make thee my
lady.
Mi's. Ford. I your lady, sir John! alas, I should be a pitiful
lady.
Fal. Let the court of France show me such another. I see
how tliine eye would emulate the diamond : Thou hast the right
arched beauty"'^ of the brow, that becomes the ship-tire,'^° the
tire-valiant,^^ or any tire of Venetian admittance.
Mrs. Ford. A plain kerchief," sir John: my brows become
nothing else ; nor that well, neither.
Fal. By the Lord, thou art a traitor to say so!^^ thou w^ouldst
make an absolute courtier; and the firm fixture of thy foot
Avould give an excellent motion to thy gait, in a semicircled
farthingale. I see what thou wert, if Fortune thy foe'^^ were
not. Nature thy friend :" Come, thou canst not hide it.
Mrs. Ford. Believe me, there 's no such thing in me.
Fal. What made me love thee? let that persuade thee there's
something extraordinary in thee. Come, I cannot cog, and say
thou art this and that, like a many of these lisping liawthoru-
buds, that come like women in men's apparel, and smell like
Bucklersbury^' in simple-time: I cannot: but I love thee;'' none
but thee; and thou deservest it.
382
THE MEEEY WIVES OE WINDSOR, [act hi. sc. iii.
Mrs. Ford. Do not betray mc, sir. I fear you love mistress
Pag-e.
F<(1. Thou niiglit'st as well say I love to walk by the Counter-
g-ate;'*' whieh is as hateful to uie as the reek of a lime-kill.'"'
Mrs. Ford. Well, Heaven knows how I love you; and you
shall one dav find it.
Fal. Keej) in that mind; I '11 deserve it.
Mrs. Ford. Nay, I must tell you, so you do; or else I eould
not be in that mind.
lloh. [_witJu7i.^ Mistress Ford, mistress Ford! here 's mistress
Page at the door, sweating, and blowing, and looking wildly,
and would needs speak with you presently.
F(d. She shall not see me; I will ensconee me behind the
arras.
Mrs. Ford. Pray you, do so: she 's a very tattling woman.
[Falstaff hides himself behind the arras.
Enter Mistress Page and Robin.
What 's the matter? how now?
Mrs. Page. O mistress Ford, what have you done? You 're
shamed, you 're overthrown, you 're undone for ever !
Mrs. Ford. What 's the matter, good mistress Page?
Mrs. Page. O well-a-day, mistress Ford! having an honest
man to your husband, to give him such eause of suspicion!
Mrs. Ford. What cause of suspicion?
Mrs. Page. What cause of suspicion? — Out upon you ! how am
I mistook in you!
Mrs. Ford. Why, alas! what's the matter?
Mrs. Page. Your husband 's coming hither, woman, with all
the officers in Windsor, to search for a gentleman that, he says,
is here now in the house, by your consent, to take an ill ad-
vantage of his absence: You are undone.
Mrs. Ford. 'Tis not so, I hope.*"
Mrs. Page. Pray Heaven it be not so, that you have such a
man here; but 'tis most certain your husband's coming, with
half Windsor at his heels, to search for such a one. I come
before to tell you. If you know yourself clear, why, I am glad
of it: but if you have a friend here, convey, convey him out.
Be not amazed; call all your senses to you; defend your reputa-
tion, or bid farewell to your good life for ever.
Mrs. Ford. AMiat shall I do? — There is a gentleman, my
dear friend; and I fear not mine own shame so much as his
ACT ni. sc. III.] THE MEEEY WIVES OF WINDSOE.
383
peril : I had rather than a thousand poimd^^ he were out of the
house.
Mrs. Page. For shame, never stand "you had rather," and
"you had rather;" your hushand 's here at hand; hethink you of*
some conveyance: in the house you cannot hide him. — O, how
have you deceived me ! — Look, here is a hasket ; if he be of any
reasonable stature, he may creep in here: and throw foul linen
upon him, as if it were going to bucking: Or, it is whiting-time,
send him by your two men to Datchet mead.
Mrs. Ford. He 's too big to go in there: What shall I do?
Re-enter Falstaff.
Fal. Let me see 't, let me see 't! O let me see 't! I '11 in, I '11
in; follow your friend's counsel ; — I '11 in.
Mrs. Pafje. What! Sir John Falstaff! Are these your letters,
knight?
Fed. I love thee, and none but thee.*" Help me away: let me
creep in here ; I 11 never —
[He goes into the basket; they cover him with foul linen.
Mrs. Page. Help to cover your master, boy: Call your men,
mistress Ford: — You dissembhng knight!
Mrs. Ford. What John, Robert, John! [Exit Robin. Re-
enter Servants.] Go take up these clothes here quickly; where 's
the cowl-staff ?^^ look, how you drumble;** carry them to the
laundress in Datchet mead ; quickly, come.
Enter Ford, Page, Caius, and Sir Hugh Evans.
Ford. Pray you come near: if 1 suspect without cause, why
then make sport at me, then let me be your jest ; I deserve it.
— How now? who goes here? whither bear you this?
Serv. To the laundress, forsooth.
Mrs. Ford. Why, what have you to do whither they bear it?
You were best meddle with buck-washing.*^
Ford. Buck? I would I could wash myself of the buck! Buck,
buck, buck; Ay, buck; I warrant you, buck, and of the season
too, it shall appear.*^ [Exeunt Servants with the basket.] Gentle-
men, I have dreamed to-night; I '11 tell you my dream. Here,
here, here be my keys: ascend my chambers; search, seek, find
out: I'll warrant we'll unkennel the fox: — Let me stop this
way first: — so now, uncape."
Page. Good master Ford, be contented: you wrong yourself
too much.
THE MEEEY WIVES OP WINDSOR, [act hi. sc. m.
Ford. True, master P{i<>'C. — Up, gentlemen; you shall see
sport anon: follow me, gentlemen. [Exit.
I'jca. This is fery fantastical humours and jealousies.
Cams. By gar, 't is no the fashion of Franee : it is not jealous
in France.
Page. Nay, follow him, gentlemen ; see the issue of his search.
[Exeunt Evans, Page, and Caius.
3Irs. Page. Is there not a douhle excellency in this?
3Irs. Ford. I know not which pleases me hetter, that my
hushand is deceived, or sir John.
3Irs. Page. What a taking was he in, when your hushand
asked who was in the hasket
Mrs. Ford. I am half afraid he w ill have need of washing ; so
throwing him into the water will do him a henefit.
Mrs. Page. Hang him, dishonest rascal ! I would all of the
same strain were in the same distress.
Mrs. Ford. I think my husband hath some special suspicion
of Falstaff's being here ; for I never saw him so gross in his
jealousy till now.
Mrs. Page. I w^ill lay a plot to try that ; and we will yet
have more tricks with Falstaff : his dissolute disease will scarce
obey this medicine.
Mrs. Ford. Shall we send that foolish carrion,*^ mistress
Quickly, to him, and excuse his throwing into the water ; and
give him another hope, to betray him to another punishment?
Mrs. Page. We will do it: let him be sent for to-morrow by
eio:ht o'clock, to have amends.
Re-enter Ford, Page, Caius, and Sir Hugh Evans.
Ford. I cannot find him : may be the knave bragged of that
he could not compass.
Mrs. Page. Heard you that?
Mrs. Ford. Ay, ay, peace. — You use me well, master Ford,
do you ?
Ford. Ay, I do so.
Mrs. Ford. Heaven make you better than your thoughts!'^
Ford. Amen !
Mrs. Page. You do yourself mighty wrong, master Ford.
Ford. Ay, ay; I nnist bear it.
Eva. If there be any pody in the house, and in the chambers,
and in the coffers, and in the presses, Heaven forgive my sins
at the day of judgment !
ACT in. sc. IV.] THE MEREY WIVES OE WINDSOR.
385
Caius. Be gar, nor I too : there is no bodies.
Paffe. Fie, fie, master Ford ! are you not ashamed ? What
spirit, what devil, suggests this imagination? I would not
have your distemper in this kind, for the wealth of Windsor
Castle.
Ford. 'T is my fault, master Page: I sulFer for it.
Eva. You suffer for a pad conscience ; your wife is as honest
a 'omans as I will desires among five thousand, and five hun-
dred too.
Caius. By gar, I see 't is an honest woman.
Ford. Well ; — I promised you a dinner : — Come, come, walk
in the Park: I pray you pardon me ; I will hereafter make
known to you why I have done this. — Come, wife ; — come,
mistress Page ; I pray you, pardon me ; pray heartily,
pardon me.
Pa(/e. Let 's go in, gentlemen ; but, trust me, we '11 mock
him. I do invite you to-morrow morning to my house to
breakfast : after, we '11 a-birding together ; I have a fine hawk
for the bush : ShaU it be so ?
Ford. Any thing.
Fva. If there is one, I shall make two in the company.
Caius. If there be one or two, I shall make-a the tird.^^
Ford. Pray you go, master Page.
Eva. I pray you now, remembrance to-morrow on the lousy
knave, mine host.
Caius. Dat is good ; by gar, with all my heart.
Eva. A lousy knave, to have his gibes and his mockeries.
[Exeunt omnes.
SCENE lY.—The Hall in Page's House.
Enter Fenton and Mistress Anne Page.
Fent. I see I cannot get thy father's love ;
Therefore no more turn me to him, sweet Nan.
Anne. Alas ! how then ?
Fent. Why, thou must be thyself.
He doth object, I am too great of birth ;
And that, my state being gall'd with my expense,
I seek to heal it only by his wealth :
Besides these, other bars he lays before me, —
My riots past, my wild societies ;
And tells me 't is a tiling impossible
I should love thee, but as a property.
n. 49
38G
THE MEKRY WIVES OE WINDSOR, [act iii. sc. iv.
Anne. ^lay be, he tells you true.
Fcnf. No, Heaven so sj)ce(l me in iny time to come !
Albeit, I will confess thy father's wealth
Was the tirst motive that I wooVl thee, Anne :
Yet, wooing thee, I found thee of more value
Than stamps in gold, or sums in sealed bags ;
And 't is the very riches of thyself
That now I aim at.
Anne. Gentle master Fenton,
Yet seek my father's love ; still seek it, sir :
If opportunity and humblest suit'^*
Cannot attain it, why then — Hark you hither.
[They converse apart.
Enter Shallow, Slender, and Mrs. Quickly.
ShaJ. Break their talli, mistress Quickly; my kinsman shall
speak for himself.
Slen. I '11 make a shaft or a bolt on 't:^^ slid, 'tis but
venturing.
Shal. Be not dismayed.
Slen. No, she shall not dismay me : I care not for that, — but
that I am afeard.
Quick. Hark ye ; master Slender would speak a word with
56
you.
Anne. I come to him. — This is my father's choice.
O, what a world of vild ill-favour'd faults
I>ook handsome in three hundred pounds a-year.^^ [Aside.
Quick. And how does good master Fenton? Pray you, a
word with you.
Shal. She 's coming ; to her, coz. O boy, thou hadst a
father !
Slen. I had a father, mistress Anne ; — my uncle can tell you
good jests of him : — Pray you, uncle, tell mistress Anne the
jest, how my father stole two geese out of a henloft,^^ good
uncle.
Shal. Mistress Anne, my cousin loves you.
Slen. Ay, that I do, as well as I love any woman in
Glostershire.
Shal. He will maintain you like a gentlewoman.
Slen. Ay, that I will, come cut and long-tail,^^ under the
degree of a squire.
Shal. He will make you a hundred and fifty pounds jointure.
ACT in. sc. IV.] THE MEERY WIVES OE WINDSOE.
387
Anne. Good master Shallow, let him woo for himself.
Shal. Marry, I thank you for it; I thank you for that good
comfort. She calls you, coz : I '11 leave you. [He steps aside.
Anne. Now, master Slender.
Slen. Now, good mistress Anne.
Anne. What is your will?
Slen. My will? 'od's heartlings, that's a pretty jest, indeed!
I ne'er made my will yet, I thank Heaven ; I am not such a
sickly creature, I give Heaven praise.
Anne. I mean, master Slender, what would you with me ?
Slen. Truly, for mine own part, I would little or nothing with
you : Your father, and my uncle, hath^'° made motions : if it
be my luck, so ; if not, happy man be his dole ! They can
tell you how things go better than I can : You may ask your
father ; here he comes.
Enter Page and Mistress Page.
Page. Now, master Slender : — Love him, daughter Anne.
Why, how now! what does master Fenton here?
You wrong me, sir, thus still to haunt my house :
I told you, sir, my daughter is disposed of.
Fent. Nay, master Page, be not impatient.
Mrs. Pafje. Good master Fenton, come not to my child.
Page. She is no match for you.
Fent. Sir, will you hear me ?
Page. No, good master Fenton.
Come, master Shallow ; come, son Slender, in : —
Knowing my mind, you wrong me, master Fenton.
[Exeunt Page, Shallow, fl'/^c? Slender.
Quick. Speak to mistress Page.
Fent. Good mistress Page, for that I love your daughter
In such a righteous fashion as I do.
Perforce, against all checks, rebukes, and manners,
I must advance the colours of my love,
And not retire : Let me have your good will.
Anne. Good mother, do not marry me to yond fool.
Mrs. Page. I mean it not ; I seek you a better husband.
Quick. That 's my master, master Doctor.
Anne. Alas, I had rather be set quick i' the earth,
And bowl'd to death with turnips.''^
Mrs. Page. Come, trouble not yourself: Good master Fenton,
I will not be your friend, nor enemy:
388
THE MEURY WIVES OF WINDSOR, [act hi. sc. v.
My (l{iug:litor will I question how she loves you,
And, as I lind her, so am I affected ;
Till then farewell, sir : — She must needs go in ;
Her father will he angry. [Exeunt Mrs. Page and Anne.
Fenf. Farewell, gentle mistress : farewell, Nan.
Qfdck. This is my doing, now. — Nay, said I, will you east
away your ehild on a fool, and a physieian V''^ Look on, master
Fenton : — this is my doing.
Fenf. I thank thee ; and I pray thee, onee to-night,^'^
Give my sweet Nan this ring : There 's for thy pains. [Exit.
Qiiici. Now, Fleaven send thee good fortune ! A kind heart
he hath : a w oman w ould run through fire and water for sueh a
kind heart. But yet, I would my master had mistress Anne ; or
I would master Slender had her ; or, in sooth, I would master
Fenton had her : I will do what I can for them all three, for so
I have promised ; and I '11 he as good as my word ; but
speciously*^^ for master Fenton. Well, I must of another errand
to sir John Falstaff from my two mistresses. What a beast am
I to slack it ! [Exit.
SCENE V. — A Room in the Garter Inn.
Enter Falstaff and Bardolph.
Fal. Bardolph, I say.
Bard. Here, sir.
Fal. Go, fetch me a quart of sack ; put a toast in 't."^
[Exit Bard.] Have I lived to he carried in a basket, like a
barrow of butcher's offal, and to be thrown in the Thames?
Well, if I be served such another trick, I '11 have my brains
ta'en out, and buttered, and give them to a dog for a new year's
gift. The rogues slighted*^' me into the river with as little
remorse, as they would have drowned a blind bitch's puppies,^^
fifteen i' the litter: and you may know, by my size, that I have
a kind of alacrity in sinking ; if the bottom were as deep as hell,
I should down. I had been drowned, but that the shore was
shelvy and shallow, — a death that I abhor ; for the water swells
a man ; and what a thing should I have been, when I had been
swelled ! I should have been a mountain of mummy.
Re-enter Bardolph, ivith the TP^ine.
Bard. Here 's mistress Quickly, sir, to speak with you.
ACT III. SC. v.] THE MERRY WIVES OE WINDSOR.
389
Fal. Come, let me pour in some sack to the Thames water ;
for my belly 's as cold as if I had swallowed snowballs, for pills
to cool the reins. CaU her in.
Bard. Come in, woman.
Enter Mistress Quickly.
Quick. By your leave; I cry you mercy; Give your worship
good morrow.
Fal. Take away these chalices : Go, brew me a pottle of sack
finely.
Bard. With eggs, sir?
Fal. Simple of itself ; I 'U no pullet-sperm in my brewage. —
[Exit Bardolph.] — How now?
Quick. Marry, sir, I come to your worship from mistress
Ford.
Fal. Mistress Ford! I have had ford enough:''*^ I was thrown
into the ford : I have my belly full of ford !
Quick. Alas the day! good heart, that was not her fault: she
does so take on with her men;°° they mistook their erection.
Fal. So did I mine, to build upon a foolish woman's
promise.
Quick. Well, she laments, sir, for it, that it would yearn your
heart to see it. Her husband goes this morning a-birding : she
desires you once more to come to her, between eight and nine.
I must carry her word quickly: she '11 make you amends, I
warrant you.
Fal. Well, I will visit her: Tell her so; and bid her think
what a man is : let her consider his frailty, and then judge of
my merit.
Quick. I will tell her.
Fal. Do so. Between nine and ten, say'st thou?
Quick. Eight and nine, sir.
Fal. Well, be gone : I will not miss her.
Quick. Peace be with you, sir. [Eait.
Fal. I marvel I hear not of master Brook; he sent me word
to stay within: I like his money well. O, here he comes.
Enter Ford.
Ford. Bless you, sir!
Fal. Now, master Brook, you come to know what hath
passed between me and Ford's wife.
Ford. That, indeed, sir John, is my business.
390
THE MEREY AVIVES OE WINDSOE. [act m. sc. v.
F(iL blaster Brook, I will not lie to you: I was at her house
the hour she appointed nic.
Ford. And sped you, sir?
Fal. Very ill-favoured ly, master Brook.
Ford. How so, sir? Did she ehange her determination?
Fal. No, master Brook; hut the peaking cornuto,'" her hus-
hand, master Brook, dwelling- in a eontinual larum of jealousy,
conies me in the instant of our encounter, after we had em-
hraced, kissed, protested, and, as it were, spoke the prologue of
our comedy;'^ and at his heels a rahhle of his companions, thither
l)rovoked and instigated hy his distemper, and, forsooth, to search
his house for his wife's love.
Ford. What ! while you were there?
Fal. While I was there.
Ford. And did he search for you, and could not find you?
Fal. You shall hear. As good luck would have it, comes in
one mistress Page, gives intelligence of Ford's approach; and,
hy her invention, and Ford's wife's distraction,'" they conveyed
me into a buck-hasket.
Ford. x4l buck-basket?
Fal. By the Lord,'^ a buck-basket! rammed me in with foul
shirts and smocks, socks, foul stockings, greasy napkins; that,
master Brook, there was the rankest compound of villainous
smell that ever olfendcd nostril.
Ford. And how long lay you there?
Fal. Nay, you shall hear, master Brook, what I have suffered
to bring this woman to evil for your good. Being thus
crammed in the basket, a couple of Ford's knaves, his hinds,
w^ere called forth by their mistress, to carry me in the name of
foul clothes to Datchet-lane : they took me on their shoulders;
met the jealous knave their master in the door, who asked
them once or tAvice what they had in their basket : I quaked for
fear, lest the lunatic knave would have searched it; but Fate,
ordaining he should be a cuckold, held his hand. Well : on
went he for a search, and away went I for foul clothes. But mark
the sequel, master Brook : I suffered the pangs of three several
deaths : first, an intolerable fright, to be detected with a jealous
rotten bell-wether:" next, to be compassed, like a good bilbo, in
the circumference of a peck,'' hilt to point, lieel to head : and
then, to be stopped in, like a strong distillation, with stinking
clothes that fretted in their own grease: think of that, — a man
of my kidney,'' — think of that; that am as subject to heat as
ACT III. SC. v.] THE MEEEY WIVES OE WINDSOR.
391
butter; a man of continual dissolution and thaw; it was a
miracle to scape suffocation. And in the height of this bath,
when I was more than half stewed in grease, hke a Dutch dish,
to be thrown into the Thames, and cooled, glowing hot, in that
surge, like a horse-shoe; think of that, — hissing hot, — think of
that, master Brook !
Ford. In good sadness, sir, I am sorry that for my sake you
have suffered all this. My suit then is desperate; you 'U under-
take her no more.
Fal. Master Brook, I will be thrown into iEtna, as I have
been into Thames, ere I will leave her thus. Her husband is
this morning gone a-birding : I have received from her another
ambassy" of meeting; 'twixt eight and nine is the hour, master
Brook.
Ford, 'T is past eight already, sir.
Fal. Is it? I will then address me to my appointment. Come
to me at your convenient leisure, and you shall know how I
speed; and the conclusion shall be crowned with your enjoying
her: — Adieu. You shall have her, master Brook; master Brook,
you shall cuckold Ford. [Exit.
Ford. Hum! ha! is this a vision? is this a dream? do I
sleep? Master Ford, awake; awake, master Ford; there's a
hole made in your best coat, master Ford. This 't is to be
married ! this 't is to have linen and buck-baskets! — Well, I will
proclaim myself what I am : I will now take the lecher ; he is at
my house ; he cannot scape me ; 't is impossible he should ;
he cannot creep into a halfpenny purse, nor into a pepper-box;
but, lest the devil that guides him should aid him, I will search
impossible places. Though what I am I cannot avoid, yet to
be what I would not shall not make me tame: If I have horns
to make me mad,^^ let the proverb go with me, — I '11 be horn-
mad. [Exit.
^ The Fetti/-u'ard, the Parh-ward.
The old editions read Fittie-ward. Capell proposed City ward. Petty, little,
is so very common in the names of localities, there can be little doubt of its
correctness. Simple has surveyed nearly every direction ; he has looked towards
the Petty or Little Park, also towards the great Park, the Park-ward, and Old
Windsor. Old Windsor is on the side of Erogmore furthest from the Castle.
So, in 1 Henry YI., act iii, " their powers are marching unto Paris- ward,"
that is, towards Paris.
^ Pless my soul.
In the old manuscript of this play, all Evans's speeches are very carefully spelt to
indicate his peculiar phraseology, much more so than in the printed editions. Thus,
in the present speech, the manuscript reads, — " Plesse my soul : how full of chollers
I am, and trempling of mind : I shall pe glat if he hafe deceivet me : how
melanchoUies I am ! I will knog his vrinalls apout his knaves costart, when I
hafe goot opportunities for the 'orke : Plesse my soul : {sings)
" To shallow rifers to whose falls :
Melotious birts sini? matricalls :
There will we make our peds of roses,
And a thousand fragrant posies."
^ Good opportunities for the ^orhe.
To please which orhe her husband's weaken'd piece
Must have his cullis mixed with amber-grease,
Pheasant and partridge into jelly turned,
Grated with gold, seven times refined and burn'd. — Brit. Past.
* To shalloiD rivers, to tvhose falls.
These lines are taken from a little song, written by Marlowe, which long
continued excessively popular. It was printed, with an answer to it, in England's
Helicon, 1600 ; and both form, with variations, a black-letter ballad, a fac simile y
of which the reader will observe opposite to p. 375. This fac-simile exactly
expresses the character of the original, which is very badly and lightly printed,
with worn type. It is, in fact, one of the penny street ballads of the seventeenth
century; and is very curious, as exhibiting the popularity of the present song, which
II. ' 50
391
NOTES TO THE TIIIIU) ACT.
■was first published, and attributed to Shakespeare, in the Passionate Pilgrim, 1599,
where it appears thus, —
Live with nie and be my Love,
And we will all the pleasures prove
That hilles and vallies, dales and fields {sic).
And all the crai>'gy mountaines yeeld.
There will we sit upon the ]locks.
And see the Sheplieards feed their flocks,
By shallow llivers, by whose fals
Melodious birds sing- Madrigals.
There will I make thee a bed of Koses,
AVith a thousand fragrant poses,
A cap of flowers, and a Kirtle
Imbrodered all with leaves of Mirtle.
A belt of straw and Yvye buds,
With Corall Clasps and Amber studs,
And if these pleasures may thee move,
Then live with me, and be my Love.
Loves answere. — If that the "World and Love were young,
And truth in every sheplieards toung,
These pretty pleasures might me move,
To live with thee and be thy Love.
Doe you take me for a woman, that you come upon mee with a ballad of
Come live with me and be my Love. — Choices Change, and Change, or Conceits in
their Colours, 4to. London, 1G06, p. 3.
See further observations on this song, which was set to music even in
Shakespeare's time, in the notes to the Poems.
^ When as I sat in Pahylon.
Evans, in his "trempling of mind," mixes the psalms with the ballad.
The present line is the commencement of the 137th Psalm in the old version,
ed. 1638, p. 93,—
Whenas wee sate in Babylon,
The rivers round about.
And in remembrance of Sion,
The teares for griefe burst out.
Mr. G. Daniel possesses a very early black-letter ballad, with the following
direction, — " Syng this after the tune of the cxxxvij. Psalme, which begins, When ^
as tee sat in Babilon, or such lyke."
® So wide of his own respect.
In other words, whose anger had so overcome him, h^ was indifferent to his
own reputation in the matter.
And his passion of my heart!
When Mr. Winchcomb heard this, he wondred greatly at the man, and did
much pity his misery, though as yet he made it not known, saying, Passion on my
heart, man, thou wilt never pay me thus ; never think, by being a porter,
to pay a five hundred pound debt. — Pleasant History of Jack of Newbury, n. d.
^ For missing your meetings and appointments.
These words are not in the folio, but they occur in the early quarto, and appear
to be necessary to the sense.
NOTES TO THE THIED ACT.
395
^ Gallia and Gaul.
Gallia is, of course, Erance. Gaul is pays de Galles, Wales. So the
romance of Perecijvelle of Gales, in the Lincoln MS. Hanmer proposed to read,
Gallia aitd Wallia.
^° Give me Ihy hand, terrestrial; so.
This very characteristic passage is taken from the quarto, being, probably
accidentally, omitted in the folio.
He has made us his vlouting-stog.
Sir Arth. Married to Elowerdale ! 'tis impossible. — Oli. Married, man? che
hope thou dost but jest, to make a vlowten merriment of it. — I^aff. 0 'tis too
true ! here comes his uncle. — The London Prodigal.
Scall, scurvy, cogging companion, s
"Scall was an old word of reproach, as scab was afterwards. Chaucer impre-
cates on his scrivener: — Under thy longe lockes mayest thou have the scalle." —
Johnson.
And then, perchance, you would wish you had beene more constant to your
first betrothed, and lesse confident to every cogging companion; but it w ill bee then
too late. — The Man in the Moone, 1609.
^■^ / cannot tell ichat the dicltens his name is.
Diclcens, devil ; of uncertain etymology. "What, the dickens !" — Ileywood's
Edward the Eourth, 1600. The phrase is still very commonly and harmlessly used,
both in England and America, but early instances of it are rare.
Carry a letter ticenty mile.
The singular used for the plural, a common practice in Shakespeare's time,
especially when speaking of time or distance. — " Twelve year since," Tempest.
This shoicer sing in the wind.
" 1 hear it sing i' the wind," Tempest, act ii.
Good plots! — they are laid.
A similar phrase occurs in the quarto, in a speech corresponding to a previous
one, — "What a damned epicurian is this? My wife hath sent for him, the plot is
laid: Page is an Asse, a foole."
O that plotts, tcell laid, should thus be dash'd and foyld. — Strode' s Floating
Island, 1686.
We have lingered about a match.
Lingered, hesitated, been in suspense, but not necessarily for a very long time.
The time here is only one day.
He speal^s holy day.
He speaks his best, his holyday language ; he speaks in good language suited
to a holyday. Steevens has observed a similar expression in Henry IV., — "With
many holiday and lady terms," i.e. fine, affected terms. AVe have, " in the
holiday time of my beauty," in act ii. sc. 1. The second folio has, bee speukes
holliday.
Nothing under a Subpoena can draw him to London ; and when hee is there, he
sticks fast upon every object, casts his eyes away upon gazing, and becomes the
prey of every cut-purse. When he corns home, those wonders serve him for his
Holiday talke. — Overburys NetD and Choise Characters, 1615.
The time of wooing, wench, goes far beyond it ; those are the Golden Days of
390
NOTES TO TKE THIED ACT.
our comand ; once wives ever slaves : no, no, virgins are the absolute monarchs
in the world, but that their reign never lasts long; is it not brave to be cald
Goddesse, Eui})ressc, Qucnc, nyui})h? Lady is the lowest stile, but where are
these after the wedding day ? then sweet-heart, or Avife, are holijday words; we
never hear the former, but in an irony or scolf. — The IFizard, a MS. Play,
circa 1010.
He smells Ap'il and May.
That is, in the phraseology of the time, he smells of April and May ; in other
words, he is as gay as Spring. The quarto reads, — " he smelles a// April and May."
He peep'd in the bushes, and spy'd where there lay
llis mistress, whose countenance made April May.
Cotgraves Wits Interpreter, 1G71, p. 186.
A day in April never came so sweet. — Mercli. Ven.
~^ ^Tis in his hut tons.
]\[r. Knight, in his Library Edition of Shakespeare, vol. iii., p. 71, mentions a
similar phrase, " It does not lie in your breeches," meaning, it is not within your
compass : " 'tis in his buttons" therefore means — he's the man to do it ; his
buttons hold the man. This is certainly a probable interpretation, and the context
appears not only to warrant but almost require that explanation. The following
observations from the commentators, chiefly by Steevens, are given, because the
subject is at present one respecting which some doubt may be entertained : —
"Alluding to an ancient custom among the country fellows, of trying whether
they should succeed with their mistresses, by carrying the batchelors Ituttons (a
plant of the Lychnis kind, whose flowers resemble a coat button in form) in their
pockets ; and they judged of their good or bad success by their growing, or their
not growing there. Greene mentions these hatchelors hnttons in his Quip for an
upstart Courtier : ' 1 saw the hatchelor s-huttons, whose virtue is to make
wanton maidens weep, when they have worne them forty weeks under their aprons,'
&c. The same expression occurs in TIeywood's EairMaid of the AYest, 1G31 : —
' He wears hatchelors hiittons, does he not ?' Again, in the Constant Maid, by
Shirley, lOiO : ' I am a hatchelor; I pray, let me be one of your buttons still then.'
Again, in A Eair Quarrel, by Middleton and Rowley, 1617 : — ' I'll wear my
hatchelor s buttons still.' Again, in A Woman never Yex'd, a comedy by Rowley,
1632 : — ' Go, go, and rest on Yenus' violets ; shew her a dozen oibatchelors buttons,
boy.' Again, in Westward Hoe, 1606 : ' Here's my husband, and no hatchelor s
buttons are at his doublet.' "
Another explanation is that the phrase alludes to the school-boys' custom of
counting their fortunes on the buttons of their jackets.
He shall not hnit a hnot in his fortunes.
Eenton's wealth and fortune had been untwisted or unravelled by his extrava-
gance. Page does not desire the unravelling should be stayed by a knot formed
with his property.
And drinlc Canary with Mm.
Yenner savs, "Canarie wine, which beareth the name of the islands from \
whence it is brought, is of some termed a sacke, with this adjunct, sweete," —
Yia Recta, 1622. Howell says that, in his time, 1631, it Avas much adulterated.
" I shall drinh in'' is, of course, merely equivalent to, "/ shall drinh." Ealstaff
will dance to Eord's piping. Canary was also the name of a dance, and hence the
double quibble.
He was a man of all tavernes, and excellent musitian at the sackbut, and your
onely dauncer of the canaries. — Meeting of Gallants at an Ordinarie, 1601.
NOTES TO THE THIllD ACT.
397
I shall drink in pipe-iinne first with him.
^^Fipe is known to be a vessel of wine, now containing two hogsheads. Fipe-
wine is therefore wine, not from the bottle, but pnpe; and the jest consists in
the ambiguity of the word, which signifies both a cask of wine, and a musical
instrument." — Johnson.
" The jest here lies in a mere play of words, — I'll give him pipe-mxiQ, which
shall make him dance"- — Edinburgh Magazine, Nov. 1786. " The phrase, — ' to
drink in pipe-wine' — always seemed to me a very strange one, till I met with the
following passage in King James's first speech to his Parliament, in 1G04 ; by
which it appears that ' to drink in was the phraseology of the time : ' — who
either, being old, have retained tlieir first drunken liquor,' &c." — Malone. See
examples of the particle in redundant in vol. i. p. 27tl.
Among the whitsters in Batchet Mead.
Whitsters were blanchers of linen. Bleachers are still termed whipsters in the
North of England. ''JFhitester, a bleacher of Hnen," Wilbraham's Cheshire
Glossary, p. 11^. So, afterwards, whiting-time, bleacliing time. "One seeing a
gentlewoman attyr'd all in white, said she had laid her chastity a whiting" —
Copley's Wits, Eits, and Eancies, 1611.
Hoiv noiD, my eyas-musket?.
Eyas-mushet, a young male" sparrow-ha^k ; here jocularly applied to a youth.
See further observations on eyas in the notes to Hamlet.
We'll teach him to know turtles from jays.
That is, to distinguish between constant turtledoves and inconstant jays. The
latter bird was a type for a woman of loose character. See Cymbeline.
Ilave I caught thee, my heavenly jewel?
Tlie quarto omits thee. EalstafiP is here quoting the first line of the following
song in Sir P. Sidney's Astrophel and Stella, —
Have 1 caught my heav'nly jewell. Now will I invade the fort ;
Teaching sleepe most faire to be? Cowards Love with losse rewardeth.
Now will 1 teach her that she Put, 6 foole, thinke of the danger,
When she wakes, is too-too cruell. Of her just and high disdaine:
Since sweet sleep her eyes hath charmed, Now will 1, alas ! refraine,
The two only darts of Love : Love feares nothing else but anger.
Now will 1 with that boy prove Yet those lips so sweetly swelling,
Some play, while he is disarmed. Do invite a stealing kisse:
Her tongue waking still refuseth. Now will I but venture this,
Giving frankly niggard No: Who will read must first learne spelling.
Now will I attempt to know. Oh ! sweet kisse, but ah ! she is waking,
What No her tongue sleeping useth. Lowring beautie chastens me :
See the hand which waking gardeth. Now will I away hence flee:
Sleeping, grants a free resort : Eoole, more foole, for no more taking.
Mistress Ford, F cannot cog, F cannot prate.
I, but a knave may kill one by a tricke.
Or lay a plot, or soe; or cog, or prate. — Hoffman, 1631.
The right arched leaiity of the hrow.
So the folio. The quarto reads lent in the place of heauty.
308
KOTES TO THE TIIIED ACT.
That becomes the ship-tire.
This pns?ap:c lias Lcen the siihject of much dispute, hut it shouhl, I think, he
literally iutcrpreted as an attire for the head, in the form of a ship. In the iJiana
of Georg-e of Montemayor, 1598, mention is made
of a nymph's head-dress, — " the attyre of her head
was in forme of two little ships made of emeraulds,
with all the shrouds and tackhng of cleere saphyres."
The ordinary interpretation is that the slii})-tire was
a kind of 0})en head-dress, with a scarf depending- from
behind, giving the wearer some resemblance to a ship,
with her pendants out, and flags and streamers
flying. This fashion was common in Italy, and Mr.
Eairholt has selected the accompanying illustration,
of a lady so attired, from the Habite Varie of Fabri,
1593.
Their heads, with their top and top-gallant lawne
baby caps, and. snow-resembled silver curlings, they
make a plain puppet-stage of. Their breasts they
embuske up on hie, and their round roseate buds they immodestly lay forth, to
shew at their hands there is fruit to be hoped, — Chrisfs Tears over Jerusalem,
4to. 1594, ap. Malone.
But of all qualities, a woman must not have one quality of a ship; and that is,
too much rigging, 0 ! what a wonder is it to see a ship under sail, with her
tacklings, and her masts, and her tops and top-gallants ; with her upper decks and
her nether-decks, and so bedect with her streamers, flags and ensigns, and I
know not what ; yea, but a world of wonders it is to see a woman, created in God's
image, so miscreate often times and deformed with her Erench, her Spanish, and
lier foolish fashions, that he that made her, when he looks upon her, shall hardly
know her, with her plumes, her fans, and a silken vizard ; with a rufp like a sail ;
yea, a ruff like a rain-bow ; with a feather m her cap, like a flag in her top, to tell
(I think) which way the wind will blow. Isaiah made a profer, in the third of his
Prophecy, to set out by enumeration the shop of these vanities ; their bonnets, and
their bracelets, and their tablets ; their slippers, and their mufilers ; their vails, their
wimples, and their crisping-pins. — The Merchant Boyall, a sermon preached in
1607. (Compare with the above the description of Dalila, m the Samson
Agonistes of Milton.)
The tire-valiant.
The quarto reads the tire-vellet, or tire-velvet ; but the present text may be right,
in allusion to some fanciful head-dress of the time. The annexed woodcut, which
if it does not represent this attire, is at all events one of
"Venetian admittance," is selected by Mr. Fairholt from
an engraving of a noble Venetian lady, 1605, whose hair
is dressed into two horns arising from the forehead. Of
the various tires, one, the steeple-tire, is thus mentioned
in an early work.
Your haire is none of your owne, and for your steeple
tire, it is like the gaud of a Maid Marion, so that, had
you a foole by the hand, you might walke where you
would in a moris dance. — Breton s Foste with a Fachet
of Mad Letters, 1637.
^'^ Venetian admittance, i. e., a fashion received or admitted from Venice. So, in
"Westward Hoe, 1606, by Decker and AVebster: — 'now she's in that Italian
/
l;t( Uttn/i rf ///< truiiiitil hliid iHhr HaUtuI of F(^uie' J-\)i'' frvm cr prm(rved u
Ha (fiord coHArhvri in' ifieyBntisli Mmmit/
!ies
A fwect Sonnet, U'hercln the Lover exclaim -liiagainn: Fortune for tlielofs oFhisLad
Favour almoft pafl hope to get it again, and iiuhecnrl Jtceii'csacomrorr^bleanrwer,
andattaius his defire, as may here appear. The I line is, \ortune, vxy
TheZ-nvers Coniphnat for tlie lofs of his LtVc
FSDjtunc inp Joe noft tljou froiuu on nie ?
anb tjjin'it)}? fciDo'ur«( netci* kttet: be i
^piUtl^ou 31 fa? foj cbcr Iij^ti mpyain.
ant) volt tl)ou not upftf^e foj? affain<
ifg^tum Ijat^ te;oiiij|)t mj? gjitf aniJ,g^eat annoj?,
lobe Kill jcii> to^ofe fi^T)t Diti ma^e me gldO,
^uc^ gtea ujijsfojtuiiejj ueber poimj)- mc^n l)at).
f^D fo^tun tcoii mp ti/pafnre ani) mu flo??,
Jojtuiu; l)atnebtc gric^'O nie Ijalf fo foie,
^Mt talJing er toliereon iiig jjuart OiD fta^,
fortune ttjerb^ tjatf) ttnK mp lit£ atoaj?.
ifar too^fe ttiarDcatf) mi) life I Itat* tooe,
V&Mi bitter tljugl^tp Kill toffcf) too an6 fwi,
C cruel CbfnC'tljou b;£cDn- ef mp pain,
tiakelifc, eft vefte^emj? lobe agam.
3n tiam 3 fig^, n tiain Squall anf) tottp,
Jin tain mine e^?^ leCrain from quiet fiffp;
Ifn tafn 3 ffifb mp irai-s^ My nfgfit anb tw?,
3[tt fcflin mj; (oie nip lojiro'tL^ t)e\B}ap.
i^p letic &ot5 not m^piteouiS f Idint efp?,
^0? f»b uiplobe tD^at gripii^g griff 31 trp ;
full tueflma]? IfalfE fojtiineism^j rep'obe
iFoztune tl)atCo unKintil? feffp^ lote.
Wi^m ft)oulf3 3 Cee^li fearclj nr^ lobe to ^^n^.
^^enCojtunc fleets ano ^latiergi as^tk ^ufnii ;
feoniPfime^ aloft, fomctiine* again beloto,
totterinj fortune tottererlj too auD fro.
toid f IratJe mj^lofae in fo;itunf25
9?? Dfflteftl^tje in moft unconlTant brinD^,
ani onl}? ferbe ti}E fojrotos^ l)u? to me,
^ojroto {)crpflfrer tfjou ft;aU nip i^iflrifsJ be-
2ln& onlpiap.tljat fonieti'me^ conquer^ftingjs,
Fpjtane tbat rule^' on earth, anD rartljlp K^\m,?^y
^0 tbat alone H lire not in tbir too,
/'oj man? mo?e liati) fortune ftr^D Co,
«iJo man aU'tetan fojtune^ rpiofljt toitliflanD,
«itl) foisiDoin, 0fnn, m/fjtltP ftrengtfjpf Ijant)
3ti miD(f of mirtf) f|pe b?mgetli bitter moan,
ant) too? to me t^at Ijatlj \)ix. IjatreD knoton.
3f tolfDom^ cpc0 blinJ fortune babbutfeen,
'^t)tnbalmptto^e, mp'S^obe, foj fkrbecn :
*3^|m lobe faretoel, tbousb fortune Cabour tbee*
Cflitum Crail (pattcUer tonqufrm?.
The Lrclies Cotjifoitableand pleafant Anfwer.
A?? anp foul, art tUu fo f c^c afraiD .-^
^outn not mp bear, no2 be not fo bifmaib,
Fortune coniiot tottlj allljer pstoer anD^liitl,
€nfa?ce nip[)eatrtotl,inl«tl)ffanpill.
Blame not tlipcl]ance, noj.entjj' at tljp choice,
5^0 cmiff x\m bail- to curfe but to rtjorce,
fojtlinen;all nortb^'n? ar>b lotetiepiitie,
■Jf nig low it ntaj' reniain alilie,
IKccfil'e tbefpfo^etbW'f^ QS^i" totf^ee,
'(E^bp lil'f anD lobe n;all not be loit bp m ;
AnD tobilf tbs bwtt upon tbp life to Q-ap,
Fortune ITiall neber (leal tb^ Came atoap,
Site tliou inbliCi?, anD &ani(|} bfatb to #ell,
All carpful tbougbt^ feetbou from tbee e>;pel j
tbou Cof b toilTjj tT)p lore a5rff0 to be,
Fqj p?Q)f toljerM bP^olf ^ come to t{)e^.
3ln bain tbercfojebo neitbev \xiail no) toefp,
3n bain tberafojeb?eai nortbp qiiiet-tleEp,
^aSRafte not in twin tbp time in foiroto fo,
Po? io|)p tbp lobe beligbtf^ to eafe tjip tooe.
Full toe II t{)]) lobe tbp Pn'bp pan^^ notb fe?,
AnbCmntbp lobe ^lUftnbtofutcourtbee,
tbo toell i:boit mapa falCe foitune?; beebgi repiobe
5^et cannot fortune Keep atoap tbp lobe.
i}o2 "colli rbplobeoafonuncsi bark abibc,
aitfljoreficf^lc tobpelontb often flip aabe,
anbneber ibink cDat fo;tunf beareibfVcap,
3f tei'tue toatcf), anb loill not ber ebep.
l^lucR up t^p \it^n, fuppjEff ^itb b;ijnifb teargf,
'SToimcnt me not, but taKeatrap tb? fear^-,
"Eb? i^iffrif0 minft b^mki? no untonflan r fcanb0
Si?tJCb leCs; to liDe in ruling fonune^ banb^.
STljougb mi'gbfp 'jfeing;^ bpfojtim^ get tlje Coil,
ILcafing I'bftebp tljeir trabel enb tbeit' topi i
Si&ougl) fortune be to fbcm a cruel foe,
Fortune n;all not mafte me to Cerbe tbee Co,
Foj fo^tune^ fpigbtHoi' 'U'ebiT.nct carea pj'n,
Fo^ tljou tbf rebp flraU neber Icofe no^ tuin >
?f fditbful lot)e ant) fabour 3'i OofinD,
9^p recoinpcnce (ball not remain bebinU,
SDienotin fear, noj libe in Mconrent,
36e tljou not (lain, ^Dlj^re neijer blaob 'U3S^^ meflnt,
EebibeaGoin, to faint tbou bfi? t^o ^^ffb,
Ufjiaf^att, tbe better tbou tJ;alt fpeeb.
Ashbee k Danger&cH.fac-sim.
23l,i}c>l£axd. Strvet.Carait GsrdeiL
NOTES TO THE THIED ACT.
399
head-tire you sent her.' Dr. Farmer proposes to read — of Venetian remittance^
— Steevens. " In how much request the Venetian tijre formerly was held, appears
from Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, 1634 : — ' let her have the Spanish gate
[^gait\ the Venetian tire, Italian complements and endowments.' " — Malone.
It is proverbially said, that far fetcht and deare bought is fittest for ladies ; as
now-a-daies what groweth at home is base and homely; and what every one eates
is meate for dogs ; and wee must have bread from one countrie, and drinke from
another; and wee must have raeate from Spaine, and sauce out of Italy; and if
wee weare any tiling, it must be pure Venetian, Eoman, or barbarian ; but the
fashion of all must be French. — Merchant lloyatt, as above, ap. Reed.
The tyre, 0 the tyre, made castell upon castell, jewell upon jewell, knot upon
knot, crownes, garlands, gardens, and what not ? the hood, the rebato, the French
fall, the loose bodied gown, the pin in the haire, now clawing the pate, then
picking the teeth, and every day change, when we poore soules must come and goe
for every mans pleasure; and what's a lady more then another body? We have
legs and hands, and rouling eyes, hanging lips, sleeke browes, cherry cheeks, and
other things, as ladies have; but the fashion carries it away. — The Dimhe Knight,
4to. Lond. IG33.
The tires, the periwigs, and the rebatoes
Are made t' adorne ilshap'd inamoratoes.
Yea, all the world is falne to such a madnesse.
That each man gets his goods from others badnesse.
Taylors JVorkes, fol. Lond. IG30.
A plain kerchief. Sir John.
The cut representing the simple head-dress, the plain kerchief, is taken by Mr.
Fairholt from a brass, temp. Elizabeth, in the church
at Sibton, co. Suffolk.
By the Lord, thou art a traitor to say so.
That is, says Steevens, a traitor to thy own merit.
The folio edition of 1623 reads, " a tyrant to say
so."
3i If Vortune thy foe were not.
An allusion to the old ballad of " Fortune my
foe," an early black-letter copy of which is here given
in fac-simile, the rude and broken type of the original
being faithfully imitated. The tune to which this ballad was sung is preserved in
Queen Elizabeth's Virginal Eook, the MS. of which is at Cambridge ; and, according
to Dr. Eimbault, in Ballet's Lute Book, MS. Trin. Coll. Dublin, in Le Secret des
Muses, Amst. 1616, and in Neder-Landtsche Gedenchclanh, Haerl. 1626. That
the ballad given in fac-simile is the genuine ancient one of Fortune my Foe, is
satisfactorily shown by Lilly's Maydes Metamorphosis, 4to. 1600, where a charac-
ter is introduced singing the first verse of it, as follows, —
Fortune my foe, why doest thou frowne on mee ?
And will my fortune never better bee?
"Wilt thou, I say, for ever breed my paine ?
And wilt thou not restore my joyes againe ?
There be idiots that tliinke themselves artists, because they can English
an obligation, or write a true stafFe to the tune of Fortune. — Chettles Kind-IIarts
Dreanie, 1592.
O most excellent diapason ! good, good ; it plays Fortune my foe as distinctly
as may be. — Lmgiia, 1607.
400
NOTES TO THE TIIIED ACT.
Torlune my foe, why dost lliou frowne tins nii>-lit?
Ye lowring' heavens, why doc ye h)oke so darke?
FusquiVs Night-Cap, 1G12.
Old 3Ter. Sing, I say, or, by the meny licart, you come not in. — March.
Well, sir. He sing Fortune my Foe, &c. — Knight of the Burning Feslle, 1G13.
lie is gravity from the head to Ihe foote ; but not from the head to the heart;
you may fmde what place he airectcth, for he creepes as neere it as may be, and as
passionately courts it ; if at any time his hopes are effected, hee swelleth with them,
and they burst out too good for the vessell. In a word, he danceth to the
tune of Fortune, and studies for nothing but to keepe time. — Overhury's New
and Choise Characters, IGI5.
And there in durance cag'd, consume with woe,
Eeg with a purse, and sing Fortune'' s my foe.
Huitoris Follies Anatomie, 1619.
Being meerely passive, they may not make sute, with many such lets and in-
conveniences, which I knowe not : what shall we doe in such a case ? sing
Eortune my Eoe? — Burtons Anatomy of Melancholy, ed. 1632, p. 576.
Yea, those that he relyed on began to take this his soddaine favor for an
allarum, and to be sensible of their owne supplantation, and to project his, which
made him shortly after sing, — Fortune, my foe, why dost thou frowne ? so that,
finding his favor declining, and falhng into a recesse, he undertooke a new
perigrination to leave that terra infirma of the Court. — Nauntons Fragmenta
Regalia, 1611.
Take heed, dear brother, of a stranger fortune
Than ere you felt yet ; Fortune my foe is a friend to it.
The Custome of the Countrey, ed. 1617, p. 1.
Pris. Well, if I must dance, play ' Eortune my Eoe.' — Fren. No, Sellinger's
Hound, w^e are beginning the world again. — Tathanis Bump or the Mirrour of
the late Times, 1660.
' Eortune my foe, why dost thou frown on me,' &c. A good voice is a
perpetual comfort to a man ; he shall be sure he cannot want a trade. —
A pleasant Comedy called the Tico Merry Milk-maids, 1661.
How could I bless thee, could'st thee take away
My life and infamy both in one day;
But this in ballads will survive I know,
Sung to that preaching tune. Fortune my Foe.
The Bump Songs, xvii. Cent.
"Why, pretty Kins, I'le not break my heart for thee ; but if I lose thee, 'tis but
once singing Fortune my Foe, and twice being drunk, will set thee afloat out of
my heart, and then farewell to your ladysliip. — Tom Essence, or the Modish
Wife, 4to. Lond. 1677.
Taken by the watch, suspected to be a thief, the house alarm'd, the husband
see you, your mistress jear you, your friend to come by and laugh at you, in all
your afflictions how truly maiest thou sing Fortune my Foe. — The London
Cticholds, 4to. Lond. 1682.
Three different copies of the tune of Fortune are given in Chappell's National
English Airs, 1840, and in the notes to Titus Andronicus will be found an old
ballad, on the subject of that play, wliich was sung to the same tune. Mr. Chappell
reprints an early ballad, ' The Judgment of God shewed upon Dr. John Eaustus,'
NOTES TO THE THIED ACT.
401
which was likewise sung to the tune of Fortune my Eoe. See further observations
on the subject in the notes to Titus Andronicus.
Nature thy friend.
We must understand being after Nature. I see what you would be, Nature
being your friend, were not Eortune your foe in withholding the attractions of
becoming attire. The old MS. reads, ''Nature's thy friend,'' a proof of its want of
authority.
LiJce BiicMers-lury in simple-time.
The third folio reads simpling-time. Bucklersbury is a street in London,
running out of Cheapside, on the South side of the Poultry. In Shakespeare's
time, it extended to St. Mary Woolchurch, one of the churches in Walbrook Ward,
as is observed in Aggas's map,
dated about 1568, whence
the annexed woodcut is
taken. The name is not
peculiar to the metropolis,
there being a Bucklersbury
Lane at Colchester; a cir-
cumstance which somewhat
militates against the cor-
rectness of Stowe's deri-
vation. The term would
seem to have been more ancient, judging from the probable etymology.
Cheape Warde. Now for antiquities there, first is Bucklesberie, so called of a
mannor and tenementes pertayning to one Buckle, who there dwelled, and kept
his courts. This mannor is supposed to be the great stone building, yet in parte
remaining on the South side the streete, which of late time hath beene called the
old Barge, of such a signe hanged out neare the gate thereof. This mannor or
great house hath of long time beene divided and letten out into many tenements :
and it hath beene a common speech that when the Walbrooke did lie open, barges
were rowed out of the Thames, or towed up so far, and therefore the place hath
ever since beene called the Old Barge. Also, on the North side of this street,
directly over against the said Buckles-berie, was one ancient and strong tower of
stone, the wliich King Edwarde the Thirde, in the 32. of his raigne, did grant to
his colledge or free Chappell of S. Stephen at Westminster, by the name of his
Tower called Servesse Tower at Buckles-bery : this Tower of late yeares was taken
downe by one Buckle, a grocer, meaning in place thereof to have set uppe
and builded a goodly frame of timber, but the saide Buckle greedily labouring to
pull downe the olde tower, a peece thereof fell upon him, which so brused him,
that his life was thereby shortened, and another, that married his widdow, set up
the newly prepared frame of tymber, and finished the worke. This whole streete
called Buckles-bury, on both the sides throughout, is possessed of grocers and
apothecaries. — StoiDs Sarvay of London, 1598, pp. 208, 209.
The original MS. of Stow's account is still preserved in MS. Harl. 538, f. 90,
but it furnishes no other information on the subject. The same maybe said of the
account in the edition of Stow, ed. 1603, p. 262, where the name of the tower,
however, is chano-ed to Cornette-stoure ; repeated in ed. 1618, p. 477 ; and in the
folio edition of 1033, p. 276.
Bucklersbury, in Elizabeth's time, was chiefly inhabited by druggists and herb-
sellers, it being then the practice for the doctors to buy their drugs and herbs
there, and to make up their medicines themselves. In a medical memorandum-
II. 51
403
NOTES TO THE TIIIllD ACT.
hook, dated IGOS, MS. As^lmiole 1132, is a list of "siiu])lcs and drugcs asTboufte
tlieni inyscUe of one Dudly, a drogeste in Biicklarsbeiy." Muil'eit, in his Health's
Improvement, ed. 1G55, p. 26, says that Ikicklersbury "is Avholly replenished with
physiek, drugs, and spicery." This was written before the date here given, because
lUicklersbury ceased to be Ihe herb-market about the middle of the seventeenth
century. There is a marginal note in Gayton's Art of Longevity, 1059, p. 3,
which mentions Clicapside, " where the herb-market was, but now, without a writ,
removed into S. Paul's Ch: yard." The notice in Howel's Londinopolis, 1657,
p. 113, does not disprove this statement, as it is merely copied from Stow. It
w'ould seem, however, that liucklersbury Avas to some extent noted long afterwards
for druggists. Sweetmeats were also anciently sold there, as appears from a
passage in A Chast Mayd in Cheape-side, 1630, where a person, whose wife
is fond of comfits, complains that his estate ran a risk of being " buried in
Bucklersbury."
And M'here bee spi'd a parrat, or a monkey, there hee was pitch'd, with all the
littl-long-coats about him, male and female ; no getting him away ! I thought he
would ha' runne madde o' the BlacJce Boy in B ii elder s-bury, that takes the scurvy,
roguy tobacco there. — Bartholmew Fayre, fol. ed., p. 9.
Howsoever he behaved himselfe, this intelligence runs currant, that every
house lookte like St. Bartholomew's Hospitall, and every streete hke BueMershury,
for poor J\Iethridatum and Dragon-water (being both of them, in all the world,
scarce worth threepence) were boxt in every corner, and yet were both drunke every
hour at other mens cost. — Beehers Wonderfull Yeare, 1603.
Go into Bnel'lershury, and fetch me two ounces of preserved melons ; look
there be no tobacco taken in the shop when he weighs it. — Westward Hoe, 1607.
Bun into BucJdershury for two ounces of dragon-water, some spermaceti and
treacle. — Ihid.
Hee is a man of no conscience : for, like the jakesfarmer, that swouned with
going to Bucl'lershiry , he falles into a cold sweat, if he but looke into the Chaun-
cery : thinks, in his religion, we are in the right for everything, if that were
abolisht. — Overbiirys Neic and Choise Charaeters, 1615.
To lye upon thy stall, till it be sought.
Not offer 'd, as it made sute to be bought ;
Nor have my title-leafe on posts, or walls.
Or in cleft- sticks, advanced to make calls
Eor termers, or some clarke-like serving-man.
Who scarse can spell th'hard names : whose knight lesse can.
If, without these vile arts, it will not sell.
Send it to B ii elder s-bury, there 'twill well. — Ben Jonson.
As 1 am a virtuous 'pothecary, I know not how to subsist. Here's all that's
comming to me, and that's not to be expected till Christmas, if paid then.
Gentlemen, I am in a very skirvy case. Artesio has turn'd me out of his service,
and 1 must break. What shall I do ? I must play the good fellow abroad, and
then my wife plaies the devill at home. How can the one be maintain'd ? or the
other endured ? I have pawn'd already her tuftaffaty peticote, and all her child-bed
linnen, besides two tiffiny aprons, and her bearing-cloth, for which 1 have had
abeady two curtaine lectures, and a black and blue eye. But stay ! my satten
doublet has yet a good glosse, and her silk mohaire petticoate and wastecoate wiU
make a good show in a countrey church. Nay, my credit will yet passe in Buclders-
5m;y for five pounds wwth of commoditie, which, with the help of a gold night-cap,
a few conjuring Avords, and a large conscience, will go far, and set me up in a
market towne, where I may passe for a Padua doctor. — The Tiryin Widow, 16-19.
NOTES TO THE THIED ACT.
A messuage or tenement with th'appurtenaunces knowne by the signe of the
Black Bear, scituate in Bucklersbury, London, extending in breadth from East to
West twenty and four foot of assize, and in length from North to South twenty
and two foot of assize, or thereabouts. — Commissioners of Fire of London 3ISS.,
May, 1668. — One of severall mesuages or tenements scituate in Bucklersbury, in
the parish of St. Stephen, Walbrooke, called the Capitall Mesuage . . . the said
SamuelVassall sold and conveyed the inheritance ofthe said mesuage to the Company
for Propagacion of the Gospell in New England, and the parts adjacent in America.
—MSS. ^Ibid. 1672.
Bucklersbury turneth out of Cheapside, and runneth on the back side of the
Poultry, unto Walbrook ; a street very well built, and inhabited by tradesmen,
especially drugsters and furriers. — Stoice's Survey, ed. Strype, fol. Lond. 1720,
iii. 50.
I have heard that Bucklesbury was, in the reign of King William, noted for
the great resort of ladies of fashion, to purchase tea, fans, and other Indian
goods. — Pennant.
The street is called Buchelhery in an old token dated 1666. In Smith's
obituary is recorded the death, in 1639, of " Tho; HoufP, Bucklersbury, that sold the
nappy ale." In front of No. 7, observes Mr. Burn, " over the first-floor windows,
are still the sculptured effigies of the three magi, the Kings of the East ; that, on
the rebuilding of the house after the fire of 1666, was possibly a revival only of
the sign of an earlier day," Catalogue of the Beaufoy Tokens, p. 34<.
^" I cannot: hut I love thee.
— I cannot play the dissembler,
And wooe my love with courting ambages,
Like one whose love hangs on his smooth tongues's end ;
But, in a word, I tell the sum of my desires,
I love fair Lelia. — JFily Beguiled, ap. Hawkins, p. 327.
I love to wall: hij the Counter-gate.
Not a place in Windsor, as supposed by Nares, but the entrance of the Counter
prison in London.
His habite is a long gowne made at first to cover his knaverie, but that
growing too monstrous, hee now goes in bufiFe : his conscience and that, being both
cut out of one hide, and are of one toughnesse. The Countergate is his kennell,
the whole Citie his Paris Garden, the miserie of a poore man (but especially a bad
liver) is the offals on which hee feedes. — Character of a Sergeant in the Overhury
Characters, ed. 1626.
Send out to seize 'em, as they walk the street,
They'll call familiar names, you smiling greet
With, Coze, How d'ye. Sir? What's a clock? Good night.
Oh, countryman, what newes ? and you invite
To drink a cup : put them within, for state.
One of the Bridewells, or the Counter gate.
Mill's Nighfs Search, Second Part, 1646.
The recti of a lime-Tcill.
Lime-Mil is the archaic word for lime-kiln, and should be preserved. The
term is still in use in the North of England. We have hill hole in act iv. sc. 2.
^° ^Tis not so, L hope.
" The old quarto has it thus : — Speak louder : 'Tis not so, I hope. She archly
wishes Mrs. Page to raise her voice, that Sir John may overhear all that is said.
401)
NOTES TO THE THIUD ACT.
So, infra. No, certainly : — speak louder," Theobald's Letters. The repetition of tlie
stratagem was probably not intentional on the part of the author.
I had rather than a thousand pound.
" Ila, ha, ha ! I had rather tlian a thousand pound, T had an heart but halfe
so light as your's," Shoo -maker's lloly-day, or the Gentle Craft, with the humorous
Life of Simon Eyre, 1C31.
/ love thee, and none hut thee.
The last four words are from the quarto. They have been used previously by
Ealstaff, but as the repetition occurs in the edition of 1002, and is humorous, it is
here retained.
^ Wlieres the cowl-staff?
A pole or staff used for carrying a tub or basket having two handles or ears
held on the shoulders of two persons. "'Baculus, a baston, a staffe wherewith to
carry a tub &c., a cole-staffe," Nomenclator, 1585, p. 245. "A cowl-staff, vedis,
palanga," Coles. See Lambarde's Perambulation, p. 367 ; Strutt, ii. 201.
^'Bicollo, a cowle-staffe to carie behinde and before with, as they use in Italy to
carie two buckets at once," Elorio, ed. 1598, p. 43. "Upon a colestafe betwixt
two huntsmen," Chapman's Widdowes Teares, 1012. ''Courge, a stang, pale-
staffe, or colestaffe, carried on the shoulder, and notched (for the hanging of a
pale, &c.) at both ends," Cotgrave.
If this be all the punishment your wives have that beate their simple husbandes,
it is rather a boldniuGr than a discoura^'inu," of some bolde and shamelesse dames to
beate their simple husbandes, to make their next neyghbors (whom they spite) to
ride on a coidstaffe, rather rejoising and flearing at the riding of their neighbours,
than sorrowing or repenting for beating of their husbands. — Luptons Too Good to
he True, 1580.
I and my companye have taken the constable from the watch, and carried him
about the fields on a colts taffe. — Arden of Fever sham.
This word occurs also in Philemon Holland's translation of the seventh Book
of Pliny's Natural History, ch. 50: "Tlie first battell that ever was fought, was
between the Africans and ^Egyptians ; and the same performed by bastons, clubs,
and coulstaves, which they call Phalang^e."" — Steevens.
"The pedler calls for his colestaff," Randolph. Burton mentions witches
"riding in the a}Te upon a coulstaffe."
^ Looh, hoto you drumhle.
That is, how slow and sluggish you are. Drnmhj, slowly, lazily, provincial in
Suffolk. ''Drumhle, to drone, that is, to be sluggish," Pegge. The word some-
times means, to trouble, to mumble, &c., and has several senses in Scotch ; but
Pegge's explanation best applies to the present passage. "This jadish course, this
javel's course, this drumhliiig course, this drybrain'd course," Nash's Have with
you to Saffron AYalden, 1500. " Though graybeard drumhling over a discourse
be no crime," ibid. A drumhle-hee is mentioned in the same work, and a drone is
stiU called a drumble-drone in the county of Devon.
" To drumhle, cessare, dormitare — negligenter rem agere ; how lazily you set
about your business, humming and buzzing, like certain drones or dorrs, which
make a sort of drumming noise : hence called drumble-drones ; in Glocestershire,
dumble dorrs ; in Devon, drumble dranes : by others humble bees, from the
Teutonic Hummeln, and bumble bees, a Lat. Bombilare. Hence a humdrum
stands for a dull, stupid, heavy, lazy fellow ; but some include the idea of drowsiness
NOTES TO THE THIUD ACT.
405
in the word, and derive it from the Ital : Dromighare, dormitare ; Belg : Droomigh,
somniculosus." — IIS. Gloss.
Lambe, the editor of the ancient metrical history of the Battle of Eloddon,
observes, that — looh how you drumble, means — hoiv confused you are; and that in
the North, drumbled ale is muddy, disturbed ale. Thus, a Scottish proverb in Ray's
collection : — " It is good fishing in drumbling waters." — Steevens.
You icere best meddle toith buch-washing.
In the process of bucking clothes, they placed them upon a smooth board or
table, and beat them with a flattened pole. A quantity of linen washed at once
was called a buck, a tub full of linen in buck. Hence, to wash a buck, to wash a
tub fuU of buck-linen, the phrase punned upon by Eord. " I wasshe in abucke, _/>
lave la lessive; I wyll wasshe all my table clothes in a bucke, je laveray toutes me
nappes en la lessive," Palsgrave, 1530. The accompanying engraving, wliich
represents a buck-
washing, and some
otherprocesses con-
nected therewitli, is
taken from MS.
Harl. 3469, a vo-
lume compiled in
the year 1582.
There is a plate by
Du Guernier, af-
fixed to Eowe's
edition, 1714, in
which is a modern-
ized representation
of a buck-basket,
the great linen or
washing-basket, in
which Ealstaflf was
carried out. " One
bouckfatt,"orwash-
ing tub, is men-
tioned intheUnton
Inventories, p. 28 ; "a bucking tub," Nomenclator, 1585. " Eor a bucking tubbe,
iij. s. viij. 6?., "Accounts, 1572, " For a new bucking tub, 0. 10. 0," Accounts, 1715.
In the tale in Tarlton's Newes out of Purgatorie, 1590, the gallant is concealed in
" a great drie-fatte full of feathers ;" and in the other old English tale, at p. 196,
" in a heap of linnen which was but half dry."
The wicked spirit could not endure her, because she had washed amongst her
buck of cloathes a catholique priests shirt. — Declaration of Popish Impostures,
1603.
She had rather wash buhs all the dayes of her life, then be matched with such
a monster. — The Case is Altered, 1630.
There is also the statue of a landress beating a hucJc, and turning the clothes
up and down with her hand, and the battledor wherewith she beats them in tlie
water. — Humane Industry, or a History of most Manual Arts, 1061.
If we be beating of a buck.
And beetle up while the clock struck.
Away we throw it, — Canidia, or the JFitches, 1683.
BUCK-WASHING — TIME OF aUEliN ELIZABETH.
406
NOTES TO THE THIED ACT.
Jane, let the huck-lasket be g"ot ready for the foul-cloatlis, dc'e hear, and bid
the landress take care to mend all the shifts ; these great ramping-g-irles do so
tear their linuen, it almost makes me wilde. — Love for Money, 1G91.
His wife, whieh before for daintiness would not foul her tingers, nor turn her
neek aside for fear of hurting the sett of her neckinger, was glad to g*o about to
H'dsh b//ch at the Thai/ies side, and to be a chair-woman in rich men's houses ;
her soft hand was now harden'd with scouring, and instead of gold rings upon her
lilly lingers, they Avere now fill'd with chaps provoked by the sharp lee, and other
drudgeries. — JHeasaut History of Jach of Newhury, n. d.
My work was to go before my master to church; to attend my master when he
went abroad ; to make clean his shoes ; sweep the street ; help to drive Jjuchs ivhen
we 'Washed; fetch water in a tub from the Thames : I have helped to cany eighteen
tubs of water in one morning, weed the garden ; all manner of drudgeries I
willingly performed ; scrape trenchers, &c. — Lilly s Life and Times.
And of the season too, it shall appear.
" Eord seems to allude to the cuckold's horns. So afterwards : ' — and so
buffets himself on the forehead, crying, peer out, peer out.' Of the season is a
phrase of the forest. So, in a letter written by Queen Catharine, in 1526,
Howard's Collection, vol. i. p. 212 : ' We will and command you, that ye delyver
or cause to be delyvered unto our trusty and well-beloved John Creusse — one
l)uck of season.' — The season of the hynd or doe (says Manwood) doth begin at
Holyrood-day, and lasteth till Candelmas, — Eorest Laws, 1598." — Malone.
" Malone pointed the passage thus : 'Ay, buck ; I warrant you, buck, and of the
season, too ; it shall appear.' I am satisfied with the old punctuation. In the
Hape of Lucrece, our poet makes his heroine compare herself to an " unseasonable
doeT and, in Blount's Customs of Manors, p. 168, is the same phrase employed
by Eord : ' A bukke delivered him of seyssone, by the woodmaster and keepers of
Needwoode.' " — Steevens.
It is scarcely necessary to observe that the modern slang meaning of the term
l)ucl\ an ostentatious gallant, was unknown in Shakespeare's time.
So, note uncape.
According to Warburton, uncape is a term in fox-hunting, signifying, to dig
the fox out when earthed. Capell explains it, to turn the dogs oflP. The meaning
is obviously, to uncouple the hounds, and commence the hunt.
*^ AsTted who was in the basTcet.
The old copies read, who was, perhaps rightly, the relative pronouns being
sometimes wrongly used; or, in allusion to the hasty remark — "who goes here?"
It is evident that Eord could not literally have asked icho was in the basket, for
had it occurred to him that any one was there, he would of course have discovered
the trick. EalstaflP afterwards tells Eord that he " asked them once or twice ichat
they had in their basket." However, as neither observation is quite consistent
without the help derived from the quarto, I have ventured to insert the words,
"wlio goes here?," from that source. What icas is the reading of the old MS. of
the Merry AVives, and it was suggested independently by Kitson.
That foolish carrion.
Carrion, a term of contempt. " Uds bodykins ! carrion, strumpet, laugh at
me !" Win Her and Take Her, 1691. The first folio reads foolisMon, corrected
in the ed. 1632.
NOTES TO THE THIED ACT.
407
Ay, ay, peace.
These words are taken from the quarto. They are spoken aside to Mrs. Page,
not addressed to Eord.
Heaven mahe you letter than your thoughts !
That is, may Heaven make you better than your thoughts are, for they are
evil. Capell proposes to read, " make me better."
In the chambers, and in the coffers.
I will seeke every corner in the house for the quiet of my minde. Marry, I
pray you doo, husband, quoth she. With that he lockt in all the doors, and began
to search every chamber, every hole, every chest, everv tub, the very well; he
stabd every featherbed through. — Tarttoiis Newes out of Purgatorie, 1590.
/ shall mahe-a the tird.
" First, we will give you de silk for make you a frog : second, de fin camre for
make your rulfs ; and de turd shall be for make fin handkerchef for wipe your
nose," Pleasant History of Jack of Newbury, n. d. The quarto adds a dirty line,
spoken by Evans, which see at p. 223 ; and Ben Jonson has a similar nasty joke
in his Bartholomew Pair, fol. ed., p. 8.
If opportunity and humblest suit.
Dr. Thirlby proposed to read importunity for opportunity. In the Atheist's
Tragedie, 1G12, we have, — "Your opportunities have overcome;" and in Bussy
D'Ambois, — " I cannot live at quiet in my chamber, for opportunities, almost to
rapes, offer'd me by him."
" I have not ventur'd to disturb the text, because it may mean, If the frequent
opportunities you find of soliciting my father, and your obsequiousness to him,
cannot get him over to your party, &c." — Theobald.
I'll mahe a shaft or a holt onH.
A proverbial phrase, equivalent to, — I will either make a good or a bad thing
of it, I will take the risk. The
shaft was the regular war arrow,
sharp-pointed ; while the bolt was i| — ^^^g^^^*^
a blunt-headed arrow, or, some-
times one having, as Holme de- ^^^-^^ .. Cf^^y^^
scribes it, "a round or half-round ^"^^^^^
bobb at the end of it, with a
sharp pointed arrow head pro-
ceeding therefrom." The accompanying specimens were selected by Mr. Fairholt.
JFif Nay, I know there's inough in you, sonne, if you once come to put it
forth. — Sam. lie quickly make a bolt or a shaft on't. — A Trich to catch the Old-
one, 1608.
The Prince is preparing for his jorney ; I shall to it again closely when he is gone,
and mahe a shaft or a bolt of it. The Popes death hath retarded the proceedings
of the match, but we are so far from despairing of it, that one may have wagers
thirty to one it will take effect still, — Howells Familiar Letters, 1650.
Master Slender would speah a ivord with you.
As an evidence of the popularity of this play, and of the love-scenes of Slender,
may be mentioned some curious verses in Plecknoe's Diarium or Journall, Lond.
1650, entitled, "A Lover, such an one as Simple in love with Mrs. Anne Fage,
having bewrayed liimselfe, writes to Cupid in this manner," —
408
NOTES TO THE TIIIED ACT.
This is to let thee understand,
I'm dee})ly in love with Mrs. Anne,
And woukl, for more than onely raeeter,
That I could say the deeper th' sweeter ;
For I 'm in love in snch a fashion,
'Tis even as good as a purgation
Thy simples, I would have them know,
Are men when they in love do grow,
And when with mistriss he is found.
Then th' are thy mixtures and compound.
" Looks handsome in three hundred pounds a year!
All these are cittizens, and well to live ;
The worst of them is worth 300 pound. — PasquiV s Night Cap, 1612.
Mrs. Griffith, in her Morality of Shakespeare's Drama, 1775, p. 128, curiously
alters this to, in a thousand pounds a year, "to correspond," she observes, "with
the different rates of the times."
" Some light may be given to those who shall endeavour to calculate the
increase of English wealth, by observing that Latymer, in the time of Edward YL,
mentions it as a proof of his father's prosperity, " that, though but a yeoman, he
gave his daughters five pounds each for her portion.' At the latter end of
Elizabeth, seven hundred pounds were sucli a temptation to courtsliip, as made all
other motives suspected. Congreve makes twelve thousand pounds more than a
counterbalance to the affectation of Belinda. No poet will now fly his favourite
character at less than fifty thousand." — Johnson.
Stole two geese out of a henloft.
The folio reads, "out of ^pen-^ but the present text, suggested by the quarto,
is so highly humorous, I cannot refrain from introducing it. At the same time,
it must be admitted that the impropriety of introducing such a subject is, in
itself, amusing.
Come cut and long-tail.
That is, let any sort come that may, whether their tails be short or long. The
meaning of the phrase is obvious, though its derivation, whether from dogs or
horses, is rather uncertain ; the former, perhaps, the most likely, if we may judge
from the following passage, quoted by Steevens from the First Part of the Eighth
Liberal Science, entitled Ars Adulandi, &c. devised and compiled by Ulpian Eulwell,
1576 : " — yea, even their very dogs. Hug, Eig, and Risbie, yea, cut and long-taile,
they shall be welcome."
AVith teares be it spoken, too few such lowly parsons and preachers we have,
who, laying aside all worldly encumbrances, and pleasant conversing with Saint
Austen, Jerome, Chrisostome, wil be content to read a lecture as he hath done de
lana caprina, or traverse the subtile distinctions twixt short cut and long taile.
Nash's Have with you to Saffron U alden, 1596.
At Quintin, hee.
In honour of this bridaltee.
Hath challeng'd either wide countee ;
Come cut and long-taile. — Boi Jonson.
He is a good liberall gentleman ; lie hath bestowed an ounce of tobacco upon
us, and as long as it lasts, come cut and long-taile, weele spend it as liberally for
his sake. — The Beturne from Pernassus, 1606.
NOTES TO THE THIRD ACT.
409
Shee must bee courteous to all, though not by nature, yet by her profession ;
for shee must entertaine all, good and bad, tag and rag, cut and long-tayle. —
Lupton's London and the Countrey, 1632.
I watch all night ; I protest, sir, the counters pray for me ; I send all in, cut
and long taile. — A Match at Midnight, 1633.
And where of company there's none failes [sic),
To meet with Tag, and Rag, and Long-taile.
Flechioe's Diarium or Journall, 12mo. 1656.
My humour is to love no man, but to have as many love me as they please,
come cut or long tail. — All Mistaken, 4to. 1672.
I've thought with much care on these offices, and find myself fitting to be in
'em. I will have 'em all, come cut and long-tail. — BavenanfsWorJcs, 1673, p. 479.
The phrase occurs at a much later period, in the play of the Constant Couple,
4to. Lond. 1700, p. 17.
^° Your father, and my uncle, hath made motions.
So the old copies, in consonance with the grammatical usages of the Shaksperian
period. The editor of the fourth folio altered hath to have.
And howVd to death with turnips.
Win. Was there ever such a selfe affliction, and so impertinent? — Quar. Alas !
his care wiU goe neere to cracke him; let's in, and comfort him. — Was. Would I
had beene set i' the ground, aU but the head on me, and had my braines bowl'd
at, or thresh'd out, when first I underwent this plague of a charge ! — Bartholmew
Fayre, fol. ed., p. 38.
On a fool, and a physician.
Dr. Johnson suggests or in the place of and, which would certainly be more
accurate, but Mrs. Quickly is not very particular in her phraseology. She ad-
dresses Page and his wife, one of whom wishes to throw away his daughter on a
fool, the other on a physician. " To be a fool or a physician" was a common old
proverb. Steevens refers to Nabbes' Microcosmos, 1637, — ''Choler. Phlegm's a
fool. — Melan. Or a physician." Again, in A Maidenhead Well Lost, 1632 : —
"No matter whether I be a fool or 2^ physician." The proverb more correctly is,
"Every man at thirty is a fool or a physician," and so it is put into the Host's
mouth in Dennis's Comical Gallant, 1702. Malone thinks the text may be
literally right, and that Mrs. Quickly means to say, — You two are going to throw
away your daughter on a fool and a physician : you, sir, on the former, and you,
madam, on the latter.
Once to night.
That is, some time to night. " Once, one time, semel," Baret's Alvearie,
1580. So in an early letter, ap. Steevens, " I trust to be able ons to set up a
chapell off myne owne." Again, in Ben Jonaon's Silent Woman : "Well, I'll try
if he will be appeased with a leg or an arm ; if not, you must die once," i. e., says
Steevens, at some time or other.
But speciously for master Fenton.
Mrs. Quickly's mistake for specially. The latter is the word used in the
quarto edition of 1602.
Fetch me a quart of sacJc; put a toast inH.
It was the fashion to put toast into wine and ale. The following scene
n. 53
410
NOTES TO TEE TIIIHD ACT.
between Tost, Sugar, and Nutmeg, is extracted from a rare tract, entitled, ' Wine,
lieere, Ale, and Tobacco, contending for Superiority,' Loud. 1030, —
"■Enter Tost, drniil-e. — Sag. Then He be gone, for we sliall quarrcll. —
Knt. Come, feare not ; He part you, but bee's drunke, ready to fall ; whence comes
he dropping in now? How now. Tost? — Tost. Nutmeg? romid and sound and
all of a colour, art thou there ? — Nut.
Here's all that's left oimQ.—Tost. Nutmeor,
I love thee. Nutmeg. What's that, a
ghost? — Nat. No, tis your old acquain-
tance Sugar. — Tost. Sugar ! He beat him
to pieces. — Sng. Hold, hold, Nutmegge,
[NuTMEGGE and Sugar han(/ upon Tost.]
Tost. Cannot Tost stand without holdins: ?
Nut. Where have you bene. Tost ?
"■Tost. He tell thee ; 1 have bin with my
M. Ale. Sirra, I was very drie, and he
has made me drunke : doe I not crumble ?
I shall fall a pieces ; but He beat Suger
for all that."
After this, comes in a thundring toast,
with a full tankard of humming stale
beer. — Key to the Ilehearsal, 1704, p. 50.
The annexed engraving of a jug for
sack, dated 1650, is taken from the
original in the possession of W.Whincopp
esq. of Woodbridge, the sketch made
by W. C. Maclean, esq. The jug itself
is 7| inches high, and holds two pints. Proportions of the engraving, | to an inch.
The rogues slighted me into the river.
The quarto reads slided. The meaning is, probably, threw me carelessly into the
river. The MS. has highted; but, were change necessary, we might read pighted,
an old word signifying jw/ZcA^t?.
A Mind hitch's puppies.
That is, a bitch's blind puppies. All kinds of inversion were common in
writers of the Shaksperian period. See vol. i., pp. 260-267. There is, however,
no great improbability in the supposition that the mistake was intentional on the
part of the author, and, in Falstaff 's state of excitement, perhaps intended to raise
merriment in the audience.
^'^ I have had ford enough.
There is a similar play upon words in an anecdote in Copley's Wits, Eits,
and Fancies, 1614, — " A gentleman whose mistrisse name was Eield, saying in a
morning to a friend of his : See how 1 am all bedew'd with comming over yonder
field? The other answered, — Kather is it with lying all night in the field."
She does so talce on with her men.
The phrase to taJce on signified both to give way to anger, and to give way to
sorrow. It may here mean either that she is very angry with her men, or that
she is extremely sorry they mistook her directions. In the next act, the phrase
undoubtedly is used in the sense which imphes rage. " He toke on lyke a mad
man, it se demenoyt comme iing homme enrage,'' Palsgrave, 1530. " 1 take on, as
one dothe that lamenteth or soroweth," ibid. " Some will take on like a mad-
NOTES TO THE THIUD ACT.
411
man, if they see a pig come to the table," Nash's Pierce Penilesse, 1593. The
phrase is still in use in Suffolk, according to Moor, in both the senses above
mentioned.
No truly, not I, but Sardea says 'tis her sister, tho' I don't believe it, she's so
much finer and handsomer; poor heart, she tahes on pitifully, it makes a bodies
heart yeni to hear her; she sighs and crys, and won't tell what the matter's with
her, and won't eat one bit of victuals. — The Unnatural Mother, 1698.
"'^ The peaking cornuto her husband.
Cornuto is not jealous of his wife,
Nor e're mistrusts her too lascivious life. — JFitts Becreatio^is, 1654.
Shortly the wish'd for time will come.
When my cornuto goes from home. — Gallantry a la Mode, 1674.
''^ Spohe the prologue of our comedy.
Let. Yes, lady, this was prologue to a play,
As this is to our sweet ensuing pleasures.
Joy. Kissing, indeed, is prologue to a play. — Antipodes, 1640.
After some handsome insinuations, as prologues to their acquaintance, the
stranger took occasion to say, he saw no such beautifuU women in Erance as in
his country. — Comical History of Francion, 1655.
'^^ And by her invention, and Ford's icife's distraction.
That, at Mrs. Page's suggestion, Mrs. Eord being quite distracted. The
former had said, — "be not amazed; call all your senses to you," addressing Mrs.
Eord, who was seriously alarmed at the prospect of a serious termination to her
adventure. Some early editors (see Capell, 90) unnecessarily propose to read,
" Eord's wife's direction." The text, " by her invention," is taken from the
quarto 5 the folio reading, " in her invention."
By the Lord, a buch-basTcet !
There evidently requires an ejaculation here, though omitted in the folio,
probably on account of the statute of James. The present reading is taken from
the early quarto edition. The first folio reads, yes, and the second folio, yea.
''^ To he detected with a jealous rotten bell-wether.
Detected icith, for, detected by. See vol. i. p. 270. The meaning of Ealstafi^
is, — 1 suffered an intolerable fright at the expectation of being detected by Eord.
He was not really discovered.
" Detected appears to have been used in the sense of suspected, impeached.
Cavendish, in his Metrical Visions, has this very phrase — detected with, for
impeached icith, or held in suspicion by: —
What is he of our bloode that wold not be sory
To heare our names icith vile fame so detected?
Detected must have the same meaning here, for Ealstaff was not discovered,
but suspected by the jealous Eord. Some modern editors have unwarrantably
substituted by for with.'' — Singer.
'^^ hi the circumference of a peclc.
Metaphorically for, a very small compass. The quarto reads pack, a word
corrupted in a proverb to peck. The text is probably to be construed as follows :
— next, to be enclosed within the space occupied by a peck, and with hilt to point,
412
NOTES TO THE THIRD ACT.
or, in other words, heel to head, hke a good bilbo, the lest of the quahty of wliich
consisted in the facility with which it could be quite bent.
A man of my Mdney.
" Kidney in this phrase now signifies hind or qualities, but Falstaff means, a
man whose kidnies are as fat as mine." — Johnson.
Oh, cry ye mercy, sir, you need not tell me your sentiments ; I know an honest
reflection must needs be rhubarb to a mati of your hidney and character. — The
liichmond Heiress, 1693.
You must strive against melancholy, man, — 'tis the worst disease for a fellow
of thy kidney in the world. — The Marriage Hater Matched, 1G92.
''''' Another ambassy of meeting.
Amhassy, an embassy. The old form of the word in ed. 1G23.
''''' I will search impossible places.
The poets could sing of Hercules, &c., but now these are accounted impossible
fables. — Pathomachia, 1630, p. 27.
''^ To make me mad.
The old editions read, To make one mad. The probable blunder was corrected
by Mr. Dyce, in his Eemarks, p. 16.
d tIjB Jfoitrtlj.
SCENE I. — A Street in Windsor,
Enter Mrs. Page, Mrs. Quickly, and William.
Mrs. Page. Is he at master Ford's already, think'st thou?
Quick. Sure he is hy this, or will be presently; but, truly, he
is very courageous mad about his throwing into the water.
Mistress Ford desires you to come suddenly.
Mrs. Page. I '11 be w^th her by-and-by; I '11 but bring my
young man here to school. Look, where his master comes; 't
is a playing-day, I see.
Etiter Sir Hugh Evans.
How now, sir Hugh? no school to-day?
Eva. No; master Slender is let^ the boys leave to play.
Quick. Blessing of his hearti
Mrs. Page. Sir Hugh, my husband says my son profits
nothing in the world at his book. I pray you, ask him some
questions in his Accidence.
Eva. Come hither, William; hold up your head ; come.
Mrs. Page. Come on, sirrah: hold up your head; answer your
master; be not afraid.
Eva. William, how many numbers is in nouns?
mil. Two.
Quick. Truly, I thought there had been one number more;
because they say, od's nouns.
Eva. Peace your tattlings. What is fair, William?
Will. Pulcher.
414
TPIE MEEHY AVIYES OF AVINDSOU. [act iv. sc. i.
QuicJx'. Polecats! tlicre are fairer things tlian ])olccats, sure.
Ec(t. You are a very simplicity 'oman; I pray you, peace.
What is lapis, AVilliani?^
// /"//. A stone.
J'Jra. And what is a stone, William?
JFilL A pehhle.
Era. No, it is lapis ; I pray you rememher in your prain.
Tl^ill. Lapis.
Eva. That is a good William. What is he, William, that
does lend articles?
JT^iU. Articles are borrowed of the pronoun; and be thus
declined, — Singulariter, nomiriativo, hie, Ikec, hoc.
Eva. Nominativo, hig, hag, hog; — pray you, mark: genitivo,
hifjffs: Well, what is your accusative case?
IJ^ill. Accusativo, liunc^
Eva. I pray you, have your remembrance, child; Accusativo,
hung, hang, hog.
Quick'. Hang hog* is Latin for bacon, I warrant you.
Eva. Leave your prabbles, 'oman. What is the focative case,
William?
JEill. O — vocativo, O.
Eva. Remember, William; focative is caret.
Quick. And that 's a good root.
Eva. 'Oman, forbear.
3I)'s. Page. Peace.
Eva. What is your genitive case plural, William?
TFill. Genitive case?
Eva. Ay.
Tf^ill. Genitivo, — horum, harum, horum.^
Quick. Vengeance of Jenny's ease! fie on her! — never name
her, child, if she be a whore.
Eva. For shame, 'oman.
Quick. You do ill to teach the child such words: he teaches
him to hick and to hack/ which they '11 do fast enough of them-
selves; and to call wliorum: — fie upon you!
Eva. 'Oman, art thou lunatics? hast thou no understandings
for thy cases, and the numbers of the genders? Thou art as
foolish Christian creatures as I would desires.
3It's. Page. Prithee, hold thy peace.
Eva. Show me now, William, some declensions of your
pronovms.
Will. Forsooth, I have forgot.
ACT IV. SC. IT.] THE MEEEY WIVES OE WINDSOR. 415
Em. It is qui, qu(2, quod;'' if you forget your qides, your
quces, and your quods, you must be preeches.' Go your ways,
and play ; go.
Mrs. Page. He is a better scholar than I thought he was.
Eva. He is a good sprag memory.' Farewell, mistress
Page.
Mrs. Page. Adieu, good sir Hugh. [_Exit Sir Hugh.] Get
you home, boy. — Come, we stay too long. [Exeutit.
SCENE II.— A Room in Ford's House.
Enter Falstaff and Mrs. Ford.
Fal. Mistress Ford, your sorrow hath eaten up my
sufferance. I see you are obsequious in your love, and I
profess requital to a hair's breadth not only, mistress Ford, in
the simple office of love, but in all the accoutrement, com-
plement, and ceremony of it. But are you sure of your
husband now?
Mrs. Ford. He 's a birding, sweet sir John.
Mrs. Page. [JFithin.'] What boa, gossip Ford! Avhat boa!
Mrs. Ford. Step into the chamber, sir John. [Ejcit Falstaff.
Enter Mrs. Page.
M7's. Page. How now, sweetheart ? who 's at home besides
yourself ?
Mrs. Ford. Why, none but mine own people.
Mrs. Page. Indeed?
Mrs. Ford. No, certainly; — \_Askle.'] Speak louder.
Mrs. Page. Truly, I am so glad you have nobody here.
Mrs. Ford. Why?
Mrs. Page. Why, woman, your husband is in his old lunes^'
again : he so takes on yonder with my husband; so rails against
all married mankind ; so curses all Eve's daughters, of what
complexion soever ; and so buffets himself on the forehead,
crying, Peer out! peer out!^\ that any madness I ever yet
beheld seemed but tameness, civility, and patience, to this
his distemper he is in now ; I am glad the fat knight is not
here.
Mrs. Ford. Why, does he talk of him ?
Mrs. Page. Of none but him; and swears he was carried
out, the last time he searched for him, in a basket: protests to
THE MERRY WIVES OE WINDSOR, [act iv. sc. ii.
my husband, lie is now here ; and hath drawn him and the rest
of their comj)any from their sport, to make another experiment
of his suspicion ; but I am glad the knight is not here : now he
shall see his own foolery.
Mrs. Ford. How near is he, mistress Page ?
Jlrs. Page. Hard by, at street end ; he will be here anon.
Mrs. Ford. I am undone! — the knight is here.
Mrs. Page. Why, then, you are utterly shamed, and he's but
a dead man.'^ What a woman are you! — Away with him,
away with him ; better shame than murder !
Mrs. Ford. Which way should he go ? how should I bestow
him ? Shall I put him into the basket again ?
Re-enter Falstaff.
Fal. No, I '11 come no more i' the basket. May I not go out
ere he come ?
Mrs. Page. Alas, three of master Ford's brothers watch the
door with pistols, that none shall issue out ; otherwise you
might slip away ere he came. But what make you here ?
Fal. What shall I do ? — I '11 creep up into the chimney.
Mrs. Ford. There they always use to discharge their birding-
pieces -^^ Creep into the kill-hole.
Fal. Where is it?
Mi's. Ford. He will seek there, on my word. Neither press,
coffer, chest, trunk, well, vault, but he hath an abstract for the
remembrance of such places, and goes to them by his note :
There is no hiding you in the house.
Fal. I '11 go out then.
Mrs. Page. If you go out in your own semblance,^^ you die,
sir John. Unless you go out disguised, —
Mrs. Ford. How might we disguise him ?
Mrs. Page. Alas the day, I know not. There is no woman's
gown big enough for him ; otherwise he might put on a hat, a
muffler, and a kerchief, and so escape.
Fal. Good hearts, devise something ; any extremity, rather
than a mischief.
Mrs. Ford. My maid's aunt, the fat woman of Brentford, has
a gown above.
Mrs. Page. On my word, it will serve him ; she 's as big as
he is : and there 's her thrum m'd hat,^^ and her muffler too :
Run up, sir John.
ACT IV. SC. II.] THE MERHY WIVES OE WINDSOR.
417
Mrs. Ford. Go, go, sweet sir John : mistress Page and I will
look some linen for your head.
Mrs. Page. Quick, quick ; we '11 come dress you straight :
put on the gown the while. [Exit Falstaff.
Mrs. Ford. I would my husband would meet him in this
shape : he cannot abide the old woman of Brentford ; he swears
she 's a witch ; forbade her my house, and hath threatened to
beat her.
Mrs. Page. Heaven guide him to thy husband's cudgel ; and
the devil guide his cudgel afterwards !
Mrs. Ford. But is my husband coming?
Mrs. Page. Ay, in good sadness is he ; and talks of the basket
too, howsoever he hath had intelligence.
3Irs. Ford. We '11 try that ; for I '11 appoint my men to
carry the basket again, to meet him at the door with it, as they
did last time.
Mrs. Page. Nay, but he'll be here presently: let's go dress
him like the witch of Brentford.
Mrs. Ford. I '11 first direct my men what they shall do
with the basket. Go up ; I '11 bring linen for him straight. [Exit.
Mrs. Page. Hang him, dishonest varlet I we cannot misuse
him enough : —
We '11 leave a proof, by that which we w ill do,
Wives may be merry, and yet honest too
We do not act that often jest and laugh ;
'T is old but true, — Still swine eat all the draff."^ [Exit.
Re-enter Mrs. Ford, with two Servants.
Mrs. Ford. Go, sirs, take the basket again on your shoulders;
your master is hard at door ; if he bid you set it down, obey
him : quickly, despatch. [Exito
1 Serv. Come, come, take it up.
2 Serv. Pray Heaven it be not full of knight again."
1 Serv. I hope not ; I had as lief bear so much lead.
Enter Ford, Page, Shallow, Caius, and Evans.
Ford. Ay, but if it prove true, master Page, have you any
way then to unfool me again ? — Set down the basket, villain : —
Somebody call my wife : — Youth in a basket!"^ — O, you pan-
derly rascals ! there 's a knot, a ging,"* a pack, a coiispirac\
against me : Now shall the devil be shamed. What I wife, 1
n. 53
418
THE MEIUIY WIVES OF WINDSOU. [act iv. sc. n.
say! — Come, come forth. Behold, wluit honest elothes you send
forth to hleaehing !
PiKjc. Why, this passes! Master Ford, you are not to go loose
any longer; you nuist he pinioned.
Era. Why, this is lunatics ! this is mad as a mad dog !
Shal. Indeed, master Ford, this is not well; indeed.
Enter Mrs. Ford.
Ford. So say I too, sir. — Come hither, mistress Ford;
mistress Ford, the honest woman, the modest wife, the virtuous
creature, that hath the jealous fool to her hushand! — I suspect
Avithout cause, mistress, do I?
Mrs. Ford. Heaven he my witness you do, if you suspect me
in any dishonesty!"^
Ford. Well said, hrazen-face! hold it out. — Come forth, sirrah.
[Ford pulls the clothes farlouslij out of the basket.
Page. This passes!
Mrs. Ford. Are you not ashamed? let the clothes alone.^"
Ford. I shall find you anon.
Eva. 'T is unreasonahle! Will you take up your wife's clothes?
Come away.
Ford. Empty the basket, I say.
Mrs. Ford. Why, man, why?
Ford. Master Page, as I am an honest man,"^ there was one
conveyed out of my house yesterday in this basket: Why may
not he be there again? In my house I am sure he is: my intel-
ligence is true; my jealousy is reasonable: Pluck me out all the
linen.
Mrs. Ford. If you find a man there, he shall die a flea's
death.
Page. Here 's no man.
Shal. By my fidelity, this is not well, master Ford; this
WTongs you.
Eva. Master Ford, you must pray, and not follow the imagi-
nations of your own heart: this is jealousies.
Ford. Well, he's not here I seek for.
Page. No, nor nowhere else, but in your brain.
Ford. Help to search my house this one time: If I find not
what I seek, show no colour for my extremity; let me for ever
be your table-sport; let them say of me. As jealous as Ford,
that searched a hollow walnut for his wife's leman. Satisfy me
once more; once more search with me.
ACT IV. SC. II.] THE MEllRY WIVES OF WINDSOR.
419
M7's. Ford. What, hoa, mistress Page! come you, and the old
woman, down; my husband will come into the chamber.
Ford. Old woman! What old woman's that?
Mrs. Ford. Why, it is my maid's aunt of Brentford."^
Ford. A witch, a quean, an old cozening quean ! Have I not
forbid her my house? She comes of errands, does she? We are
simple men; we do not know what's brought to pass under the
profession of fortune-telling. She works by charms, by spells,
by the figure, and such daubery"'' as this is ; beyond our element :
we know nothing. — Come down, you witch, you hag, you ; come
down, I say.
Mrs. Ford. Nay, good, sweet husband; — good gentlemen, let
him not strike the old woman.
Enter Falstaff in icomans clothes, led by Mrs. Page.
Mrs. Pctfje. Come, mother Prat, come, give me your hand.
Ford. I'll Prat her: Out of my door, you witch, \ heats him']
you rag,^^ you baggage, you polecat,^^ you ronyon! Out! out!
I '11 conjure you, I '11 fortune-teU you. [_Exit Falstaff.
Mrs. Page. Are you not ashamed? I think you have killed the
poor woman.
Mrs. Ford. Nay, he will do it: — 'Tis a goodly credit for you.
Ford. Hang her, witch!
Eva. By yea and no, I think the 'oman is a witch indeed: I
like not Avhen a 'oman has a great peard ; I spy a great peard
under her muffler.^^
Ford. Will you follow, gentlemen? I beseech you, follow;
see but the issue of my jealousy: if I cry out thus upon no
trail,^* never trust me when I open again.
Paye. Let's obey his humour a little further: Come, gentle-
men. [Ejceunt Page, Ford, Shallow, and Evans.
Mrs. Paye. Trust me, he beat him most pitifully.^"
Mrs. Ford. Nay, by the mass, that he did not; he beat him
most unpitifully, methought.
Mrs. Paye. I '11 have the cudgel hallowed, and hung o'er the
altar; it hath done meritorious service.
Mrs. Ford. What think you? IMay we, with the warrant of
womanhood, and the witness of a good conscience, pursue him
with any further revenge?
Mrs. Paye. The spirit of wantonness is, sure, scared out of
him; if the devil have him not in fee-simple, with line and
120 THE MEERY WIVES OE WINDSOR, [act iv. sc. iv.
recovery, he Avill never, I tliiiik, in the way of waste/" attempt
us aii'ain.
Mrs. Ford. Shall we tell our hushands how we have served him?
Mrs. Farje. Yes, hy all means; if it he hut to scrape the
ti«i:ures out of your hushand's hrains. If they can find in their
hearts, the poor unvirtuous fat knight shall he any further afflicted,
we two will still he the ministers.
Mrs. Ford. I 11 warrant they'll have him puhlicly shamed;
and, methinks, there would he no period to the jest,^' should
he not he puhlicly shamed.
Mrs. Fage. Come, to the forge with it, then; shape it: I would
not have things cool. [Exeunt .
SCENE III. — A Room in the Garter Inn.
Enter Host and Bardolph.
Bard. Sir, the Germans desire to have three of your horses:
the duke himself wiU be to-morrow at court, and they are going
to meet him.
Host. What duke should that be, comes so secretly? I hear
not of him in the Court. Let me speak with the gentlemen; they
speak English.
Bard. Ay, sir; I '11 call them to you.^^
Host. They shall have my horses; but I '11 make them pay;
I '11 sauce^° them: they have had my houses a week at command ;
I have turned away my other guests: they must come off;^° I '11
sauce them. Come. [Exeunt.
SCENE l\.—A Room in Ford's House.
Enter Page, Ford, Mrs. Page, Mrs. Ford, and
Sir Hugh Evans.
Eva. 'T is one of the best discretions of a 'oman as ever I did
look upon.
Fage. And did he send you both these letters at an instant?
Mrs. Fage. Within a quarter of an hour.
Ford. Pardon me, Avife: Henceforth do what thou wilt;
I rather wiU suspect the sun with cold,*^
Than thee with Avantonness: now doth thy honour stand,
In him that was of late a heretic,
As firm as faith.
ACT lY. SC. IV.] TEE MEEEY WIVES OF WINDSOU.
421
Page. 'T is well, 't is well ; no more :
Be not as extreme in submission
As in offence;
But let our plot go forward: let our wives
Yet once again, to make us public sport.
Appoint a meeting witli tliis old fat fellow,
Where we may take him, and disgrace him for it.
Ford. There is no better way than that they spoke of.
Page. How! to send him word they '11 meet him in the Park
at midnight? Fie, fie ; he 11 never come.
Eva. You say,*^ he has been thrown in the rivers, and has
been grievously peaten as an old 'oman; methinks, there shovdd
be terrors in him that he should not come; methinks, his flesh
is punished, he shall have no desires.
Page. So think I too.
Mrs. Ford, Devise but liow^ you '11 use him when he comes.
And let us two devise to bring him thither.
Mrs. Page. There is an old tale goes, that llerne the hunter,
Sometime a keeper here in Windsor forest.
Doth all the winter-time, at still midnight.
Walk round about an oak, with great ragg'd horns;
And there he blasts the tree, and takes the cattle.
And makes milcli-kine yield blood, and shakes a chain
In a most hideous and dreadful manner:
You have heard of such a spirit; and well you know.
The superstitious idle-headed eld"
Receiv'd, and did deliver to our age.
This tale of Ilerne the hunter for a truth.
Page. Why, yet there want not many that do fear.
In deep of night, to walk by this Heme's oak:
But what of this?
Mrs. Ford. IMarry, this is our device;
That Falstaff at that oak shall meet with us,
Disguis'd like Herne, with huge horns on his head.**
Page. Well, let it not be doubted but he '11 come,
And in this shape; — when you have brought him thither.
What shall be done with him? what is your plot?
3Irs. Page. That likewise have we thought upon, and thus:
Nan Page my daughter, and my little son.
And three or four more of their growth, we '11 dress
Like urchins, ouphes, and fairies, green and white,
With rounds of waxen tapers on their heads,
■122
THE MEERY WIVES OF WINDSOE. [act iv. sc. iv.
And rattles in their hands; npon a sudden.
As Falstatt", slie, and I, are newly met,
Let them from forth a sawpit rush at once
AA ith some difliised'" son**-; upon their sight.
We two in great amazedness will fly:
Then let them all eneircle him ahout,
And, fairy -like, to-pincli"' the unelean knight;
And ask him why, that hour of fairy revel,
In their so saered ])aths he dares to tread,
In shape profane.
Jlrs. Ford. And till he tell the truth,
Let the supposed fairies pinch him sound,*^
And hurn him with their tapers.
3Irs. Pdfje. The truth being known,
We '11 all present ourselves; dis-horn the spirit,
And mock him home to Windsor.
Ford. The children must
Be practis'd well to this, or they '11 ne'er do 't.
Fva. I will teach the children their behaviours; and I will be
like a jack-an-apes**' also, to burn the knight with my tabor.
Ford. That will be excellent. I '11 go buy them vizards.
3Irs. Page. My Nan shall be the Queen of aU the Fairies,
Finely attired in a robe of white.
Page. That silk will 1 go buy; — and in that tire*^
Shall master Slender steal my Nan away, [Aside.
And marry her at Eton. — \_To them.^ Go, send to Falstaff straight.
Ford. Nay, I '11 to him again, in name of Brook ;^'^
He '11 teU me all his purpose: Sure, he '11 come.
Mrs. Page. Fear not you that: Go, get us properties,^^
And tricking for our fairies.
Eva. Let us about it: It is admirable pleasures, and fery
honest knaveries. \Floceimt Page, Ford, and Ea^ans.
Mrs. Page. Go, mistress Ford,
Send quickly to sir Jolm,^" to know his mind. \Fxit Mrs. Ford.
I '11 to the doctor; he hath my good will,
xVnd none but he, to marry with Nan Page.
That Slender, though Avell landed, is an idiot, —
And he my husband best of all affects:
The doctor is well money'd, and his friends
Potent at Court; he, none but he, shall have her,
Though twenty thousand worthier come to crave her. \_Exit.
ACT IV. SC. v.] THE MEERY WIVES OE WINDSOR.
423
SCENE V. — A Room in the Garter Inn.
Enter Host and Simple.
Host. What would'st tliou have, hoor? what, thick-skin?
speak, hreathe, discuss; brief, short, quick, snap.
Sim. Marry, sir, I come to speak with sir John Falstaff from
master Slender.
Host. There 's his chamber, his house, his castle,^^ his stand-
ing-bed, and truckle-bed;^* 't is painted about with the story of
the Prodigal, fresh and new: Go, knock and call; he '11 speak
like an Anthropophaginian'" unto thee: Knock, I say.
Sim. There 's an old w^oman, a fat woman, gone up into his
chamber : I '11 be so bold as stay, sir, till she come down; I
come to speak with her, indeed.
Host. Ha! a fat woman! the knight may be robbed : I '11 calL
— Bully knight! Bully sir John! speak from thy lungs military:
Art thou there ? it is thine host, thine Ephesian, calls.
Fal. \jdhove.'] How now, mine host?
Host. Here 's a Bohemian-Tartar tarries the coming down of
thy fat woman. Let her descend, bully, let her descend ; my
chambers are honourable: Fie! privacy? fie!
Enter ^ivi Soim Falstaff.
Fal. There was, mine host, an old fat woman even now with
me ; but she 's gone.
Sim. Pray you, sir, was 't not the wise woman" of Brentford?
Fal. Ay, marry, was it, muscle-shell :^^ What would you with
her?
Sim. My master, sir, my master Slender, sent to her, seeing
her go thorough the streets, to know, sir, whether one Nym, sir,
that beguiled him of a chain, had the chain, or no.'^^
Fal. I spake with the old woman about it.
Sim. And what says she, I pray, sir?
Fal. Marry, she says that the very same man that beguiled
master Slender of his chain, cozened him of it.
Sim. I would I could have spoken with the woman herself:
I had other things to have spoken with her too, from him.
Fal. What are they? Let us know.
Host. Ay, come; quick.
Sim. I may not conceal them, sir.^°
424
THE MERRY WIVES OE WINDSOR. [act iv. sc. v.
Iloiif. Conceal them, or thou diest !
Sun. Why, sir, thcv were nothiii": but about unstress Anne
l*a*re; to know if it were niy master's fortune to have her,
or no.
F<il. 'T is, *t is his fortune.
Si in. What, sir?
Fal. To have her, — or no : Go ; say the woman told me so.
Sim. ^lay I be bold to say so, sir?
Fal. Ay, sir Tike {'^ who more bold ?
Sim. I thank your worship : I shall make my master glad
with these tidings. [Exit Simple.
Host. Thou art clerkly, thou art clerkly, sir John : Was there
a wise woman with thee ?
Fal. Ay, that there was, mine host ; one that hath taught
me more wit, than ever I learned before in my life; and I paid
nothing for it neither, but was paid for my learning.'''
Enter Bardolph.
Bard. Out, alas, sir ! cozenage ! mere cozenage.
Host. Where be my horses ? speak well of them, varletto.
Bard. Run aw ay with tlie cozeners :!^^ for so soon as I came
beyond Eton, they threw me olf, from behind one of them, in a
slough of mire ; and set spurs, and away, like three German
devils, three doctor Faustuses.*'*
Host. They are gone but to meet the duke, villain ; do not
say they be fled ; Germans are honest men.
Enter Sir Hugh Evans.
Eva. Where is mine host ?
Host. What is the matter, sir?
Eva. Have a care of your entertainments : there is a friend of
mine come to town, tells me there is three couzin germans, that
has cozened all the hosts of Readings, of Maidenhead, of
Colebrook, of horses and money. I tell you for good-will, look
you : you are wise, and full of gibes and vlouting-stogs ; and
'tis not convenient you should be cozened : Fare you well.
[Exit.
Enter Doctor Caius.
Cains. Vere is mine host de Jarteere?
Host, Here, master Doctor, in perplexity, and doubtful
dilemma.
ACT IV. SC. v.] THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR.
425
Caius. I cannot tell vat is dat ; but it is tell-a me, dat you
make grand preparation for a duke de Jarmany: by my trot,
dere is no duke dat de court is know to come : I tell you for
good vill ; adieu. [Exit.
Host. Hue and cry, villain, go : — assist me, knight ; I am
undone : fly, run; hue and cry, villain ! I am undone !
[Exeunt Host and Bardolph.
Fal. I would all the world might be cozened ; for I have
been cozened and beaten too. If it should come to the ear of
the Court, how I have been transformed, and how my trans-
formation hath been washed and cudgelled, they would melt me
out of my fat, drop by drop, and liquor'''' fishermen's boots with
me. I warrant they would whip me with their fine wits, till I
were as crest-fallen as a dried pear/'" I never prospered since I
forswore myself at primero.*'^ Well, if my wind were but long
enough to say my prayers,''^ I would repent. —
Enter Mistress Quickly.
Now! whence come you?
Quick. From the two parties, forsooth.
Fal. The devil take one party, and his dam the other, and so
they shall be both bestowed! I have suffered more for their
sakes, more than the villainous inconstancy of man's disposition
is able to bear.
Quick. And have not they sufl*ered ? yes, I warrant ; spe-
ciously one of them : mistress Ford, good heart, is beaten black
and blue, that you cannot see a white spot about her.
Fal. What tell'st thou me of black and blue ? I was beaten
myself into all the colours of the rainbow ; and I was like to be
apprehended for the witch of Brentford ; but that my admirable
dexterity of wit,''^ my counterfeiting the action of an old woman,''^
deliver'd me, the knave constable had set me i' the stocks,^^
i' the common stocks, for a witch.
Quick. Sir, let me speak with you in your chamber; you
shall hear how things go; and, I warrant, to your content.
Here is a letter will say somewhat. Good hearts, what ado
here is to bring you together ! Sure, one of you does not serve
Heaven well, that you are so crossed.
Fal. Come up into my chamber. [Exeunt.
n.
54
42G
THE MEUUY WIVES OE AYINDSOB. [act iv. sc. vi.
SCENE VI. — Another Room in the Garter Inn.
Enter Fenton a7id Host.
Host, blaster Fenton, talk not to me; my mind is heavy; I
will give over all.^^
Fent. Yet hear me speak: Assist me in my purpose,
And, as I am a gentleman, I '11 give thee
A hundred pound in gold more than your loss.
Host. I will hear you, master Fenton; and I will, at the least,
keep your counsel .
Feut. From time to time I have acquainted you
With the dear love I hear to fair Anne Page;
Who, nuitually, hath answer'd my affection, —
So far forth as herself might be her chooser, —
Even to my wish: I have a letter from her
Of such contents as you will wonder at!
The mirth whereof'^ so larded with my matter.
That neither, singly, can be manifested.
Without the show of both, — wherein fat Falstaff
Hath a great scene: the image of the jest [Showing a letter.
I '11 show you here at large. Hark, good mine host:
To-night, at Heme's oak, just 'twixt twelve and one,
INIust my sweet Nan present the Fairy Queen:
The purpose why is here:^' in which disguise.
While other jests are something rank on foot,'''
Her father hath commanded her to slip
Away with Slender, and with him at Eton
Immediately to marry: she hath consented:
Now, sir.
Her mother, even strong against that match,"
And firm for doctor Caius, hath appointed
That he shall likewise shuffle her away, —
While other sports are tasking of their minds, —
And at the deanery, where a priest attends,
Straight marry her: to this, her mother's plot.
She, seemingly obedient, likewise hath
Made promise to the doctor. — Now thus it rests:
Her father means she shall be all in white;
And in that habit, when Slender sees his time
To take her by the hand, and bid her go.
ACT IV. SC. VI.] THE MEERY WIVES OF WINDSOR.
427
She shall go with him: her mother hath intended.
The better to denote her to the doctor/^ —
For they must all be mask'd and vizarded, —
That, quaint in green, she shall be loose enrob'd.
With ribands pendant flaring 'bout her head;
And when the doctor spies his vantage ripe,
To pinch her by the hand, and on that token,
The maid hath given consent to go with him.
Host. Which means she to deceive, father or mother?
Fent. Both, my good host, to go along with me:
And here it rests, — that you '11 procure the Vicar
To stay for me at church, 'twixt twelve and one,
And, in the lawful name of marrying,
To give our hearts united ceremony.
Host. Well, husband your device; I '11 to the Vicar:
Bring you the maid, you shall not lack a priest.
Fe7it. So shall I evermore be bound to thee ;
Besides, I '11 make a present recompense. [Exeunt.
^ Master Slender is let the hoys leave to play.
The Perkins MS. reads get for let; but surely the Evans who says, — with as
great discreetly, I '11 be judgement, &c. — might with propriety speak the original
text as here given.
^ What is lapis, William ?
Lapis is one of the favorite examples of Latin substantives in several of the
early Latin grammars. It is introduced also into a dialogue, similar to the
present one, in Marston's What you Will, 1607. Another scene of a like
character occurs in How a Man may Chuse a good Wife from a Bad, 1602. See
also a jocose translation in Cupid's Whirligig, 1607.
^ Accusativo, hunc.
All editions read hinc, but the blunder could scarcely be intentional, especially
as it is repeated by Evans. The boy forgot to add, hanc, hoc, which causes the
latter to say, " 1 pray you, have your remembrance, child." Evans blunders in
his English language, and in his pronunciation ; but not in his Latinity. Focative
is caret, for iwcatico caret. A few lines lower, the genitive of the old editions has
been altered to genitivo. Latin is generally printed very incorrectly in old plays.
* Hang hog is Latin for hacon.
Sir Nicholas Bacon being judge of the northern circuit, when he came to pass
sentence upon the malefactors, was by one of them mightily importuned to save
his life. When nothing he had said would avail, he at length desired his mercy
on account of kindred. Prethee, said my Lord, how came that in ? why, if it
please you, my Lord, your name is Bacon, and mine is Hog, and in all ages Hog
and Bacon are so near kindred, that they are not to be separated. Ay, but (replied
the judge) you and I cannot be of kindred unless you be hang'd ; for Hog is not
Bacon, till it be well hang'd. — Lord Bacons Apophthegms, No. 36, ap. Grey.
^ Horum, harum, hormn.
Unto the newter I compare her can,
Eor she's for thee, or me, or any man.
In her declensions she so farre doth goe,
As to the common of two or three, or moe.
And come to horum, harum, wliorum, then
She proves a great proficient amongst men.
Taylors Workes, fol. Lond. 1630.
430
NOTES TO THE EOUETII ACT.
® ITe teaches Mm to Mch and to hach.
" Sir William ]^lackstone tlioiiglit that tliis, in Dame Quickly's language,
signifies ' to stammer or hesitate, as boys do in saying their lessons ;' but Steevens,
with more probability, supposes that it signifies, in her dialect, to do mischief."" —
Malone. Literally, to fight with swords.
It is qui, qtice, quod.
Qit},\\\\\c\\ man ; qua", which woman ; quod, which thing ; cujus, of which man, of
which woman, of which tiling ; like as you may say, hie, this man ; hac, this woman ;
hoc, this thing, &c., or /mc, this masculine, &c. — Brinsley s Ludus Liter arius, 1613.
To construe plainly, she is seldome curious,
The two hard words of durus and of durius;
Though she's not past the whip, she's past the rods,
And knowes to joyne her qui's, her qim's, and quod's.
Taylors Worhes, fol. Lond. 1630.
^ You 7nnst he preeches.
You must he preeches, i. e. you must be breeched, or flogged. " Cry like a
breech'd boy," Beaumont and Eletcher.
He is a good sprag memory.
Sprach, mispronounced by Evans sprag, is still in use in the West of England
in the sense of quicJc, active, lively. Lord ChedAvorth says he has often heard in
"Wiltshire, " He has a good sprack wit ;" and a sharp boy is termed a spracJc 'un.
Hay has, " A spacM lad or wench, apt to learn, ingenious," North Countrey
AVords, 1674, p. 44, no doubt another form of the same word.
This word is used by Tony Aston, the comedian, in his supplement to CoUey
Gibber's Life ; " Mr. Dogget," he tells us, " was a little lively sprach man." —
Malone.
Your sorrow hath eaten up my sufferance.
My sufferings, and the inconveniences to which 1 have been put, are dissipated
at the sight of your regret.
I profess reqtiital to a hair's Ireadth.
At a hair's breadth, lady, I warrant you. — Poetaster.
Your husband is in his old lunes again.
Lines, ed. 1623, or, as it is elsewhere spelt, lunes, is equivalent to, fancies.
The quarto reads vein.
Peer out! Peer out!
AUuding to horns. Henley refers to the practice of children, when they invoke
a snail to push forth its horns, —
Peer out, peer out, peer out of your hole,
Or else 1 '11 beat you black as a coal.
And he 's hut a dead man.
Alas, alas, mistris, cried the maid, heer is my maister, and 100 men with him,
with bils and staves. We are betraid, quoth Lionel, and I am but a dead man. —
Tarltons Newes out of Purgatorie, 1590.
Watch the door with pistols.
Jackson ingeniously conjectures that we should read, " watch the door with
Pistol," thus getting rid of the anachronism ; but the old text is undoubtedly as it
came from Shakespeare's pen.
NOTES TO THE EOUETH ACT.
431
To discharge their hir ding-pieces.
The fabrication of a gun," observes Sir S. Meyrick, " for the sole purpose of
killing game, seems coeval with the commencement of the sixteenth century, and
perhaps immediately consequent on the discovery of the wheel-lock." The
above engraving (selected by Mr. Eairholt) represents a wheel-lock birding-
piece of the time of James I., preserved at Goodrich Court.
If you go out in your own semblance.
" In the first folio, by the mistake of the compositor, the name of Mrs. Eord is
prefixed to this speech and the next. For the correction now made I am answer-
able. The editor of the second folio put the two speeches together, and gave
them both to Mrs. Eord. The threat of danger from without ascertains the first to
belong to Mrs. Page. See her speech on Ealstaff's re-entrance." — Malone.
There's her thnimmd hat, and her muffler too.
A thrummed hat was, literally, a hat made of the thrums, or tufts, in weaving.
The thrum is the extremity of a weaver's warp, often about nine inches long,
which cannot be woven. " Thrum of clothe or threade," Palsgrave, 1530. The
term thrummed appears to have been often applied to articles made of any very
coarse kind of cloth. " Bardo cucnllus, a thrummed hatte," Elyot's Dictionarie,
1559. ''Bernasso, a thrumbed hat," Elorio's Worlde of Wordes, 1598. " A
thrummed hat, une cappe de J)iar,''' Minsheu. Thrummed caps are mentioned by
Quarles, and thrummed stockings are also alluded to. In the sixteenth century,
thrummed hats were chiefly manufactured at Norwich, and at the other corpora-
tion and market-towns of Norfolk ; Anderson's Origin of Commerce, i. 383.
Respecting the muffler, see the notes to the third act of Henry V.
^® We cannot misuse him enough.
Him omitted in ed. 1623 and ed. 1630 ; corrected in ed. 1632.
^° Wives may he merry, and yet honest too.
There is an old song, probably written soon after the appearance of the
Comical Gallant, founded upon the present line. It commences as follows : —
We Merry Wives of Windsor, whereof you make your play ;
And act us on your stages, in London day by day:
Alass ! it doth not hurt us, we care not what you do ; —
Eor all you scoff, we'll sing and laugh, and yet be honest too.
Still sioine eat all the draff.
"A proverbe olde in Englande here, the still sowe eates the draff'e," Yates'
Castell of Courtesie, 1582. "A still sow eats all the draff," Scottish Proverbs in
Hav, ed. 1678, p. 358. " Still sew eats all the drafi'e," Praise of Yorkshire Ale,
8vo. Lond. 1697.
The still sowe eath all the drafi'e ; my soowe eath none ;
The devill stiltli not my soowe, til her groyne be gone.
Heywood's Epigrammes uppon Proverhes, 1577.
432
NOTES TO THE EOUHTII ACT.
But I, who best lier liimioroiis pleasance know,
Say lliat this mad wench, when she jesteth so,
Is honester then many a sullen one,
AMiicli, being more silent, thinks worse, being alone,
Then my quick-sprighted lasse can speakc : for who
Knowes not the old said saw of the SHU Sow.
Shialetlieia, or a ShadoiDC of Trutli, 1598.'
Still sowes eat all the draffe ; but some sowes still
With better things would faine their bellyes fill.
Bavies's Scourge of Folly, 1611, p. 153.
The colt does play, while Bayard eates the chaffe,
The sow that's silent eates up all the draffe.
MilVs Night Search, 8vo. Lond. 1640.
~^ It he not full of hnight again.
The omission of the article is of common occurrence, but the passage in the
text here appears to be so written for the sake of a ludicrous effect.
" I am inchned to adopt the reading of the first folio — ' full of knight :' — there
seems to me to be a degree of humour in the suppression of the article, which
perhaps can be more easily conceived than explained ; had the basket been made
heavy with an inanimate substance, as lead, the article would of course have been
omitted in this wish ; and by the omission of the article, the knight appears to be
considered merely as a ponderous body. There is an instance of the contemp-
tuous suppression of the article in Otway, where Pierre, who was displeased at
Aqualina's admission of Antonio's visits, says to her, — There's fool, — there's fool
about thee." — Lord Chedworth.
Youth in a hasJcet!
" Youth in a basket" appears to have been a sort of proverbial phrase. It is
given as the title of some lines in A Swarme of Sectaries and Schismatiques, 4to.
Lond. 164^1. EalstafF, it is almost needless to remark, was not a youth.
There's a knot, a ging.
The first folio has gin, corrected in ed. 1632. Ging is an old English word,
meaning a company of people ; A.-S. genge, a flock. "Alisaundre quik hath armed
al his ggng,'' Kyng Ahsaunder, 922. " Hou he cam to batayle with hys gyng,"
Bichard Goer de Lion, 4978. " I could not finde in my heart to swinge the whole
ging of 'hem," Every Man in his Humour, fol. ed. p. 22. " I would uot willingly
see, or be seen, to any of this ging'' Jonson's New Inn, 1631. Steevens also
quotes examples from the Alchemist, and Milton's Smectymnuus. "Welcome,
poet, to our ging," Spanish Gipsie, sig. E. v", which is quoted, with the same form
of the word, in Poor Eobin's Almanack for the year 1709.
And all the ging goes on his side.
Their minion him they make;
To him themselves they all apply.
And all his partie take.
Drayton s Iluses Elizium, 4to. Lond. 1630, p. 57.
If you suspect me in any dishonesty.
Dishonesty is here used in a wanton sense. The term implied lewdness of any
kind, as appears from Haydocke's translation of Lomatius, 1598.
Two corrivals to a maid's dishonesiie drew and fought under her windowe,
and she, looking out, said : Sirres, you mistake ; your quarrell is not to be ended
with Steele, but with golde and silver. — Copley's TFits, Fits, and Fancies, 1614.
NOTES TO THE EOUETII ACT.
433
Let the clothes alone.
They came at last to the heap of linnen which was still remaining in the fair
one's chamber, where Camillus had been concealed the night before. The Doctor
made no question but to find his wives gallant in the heap of linnen, takes out the
linnen piece hy piece, but found not the person he lookt for.- — The Fortunate, the
Deceived, and the Unfortunate Lovers, 1632.
^'^ As I am an honest man.
"As I am a man," ed. 1623. The reading here adopted is taken from the
early quarto edition of 1602.
Lt is my maid's aunt of Brentford.
Her name, as appears shortly afterguards, was Prat; and reasons are given, in
the Local Illustrations, for believing the character was taken from life. In the
quarto, in two instances, she is termed Gillian of Brentford, being there confused
with a personage whose name was familiar to the public from a popular tract,
entitled, "Jyl of Braintford's Testament," printed at London by William Copland
about the middle of the sixteenth century. "Jyl of Brentford's Testament" was in
the curious list of books given by Laneham as constituting the library of Captain
Cox, and two copies, I believe, and no more, have descended to modern times —
one in the Bodleian Library, and another which passed through the hands of
Kitson and Heber. Dame Gillian's legacies, although dispensed with the utmost
liberality, and in some respects with judgment, were not, however, very accept-
able. According to the black-letter tract, she was hostess of a respectable inn at
Brentford, and, therefore, we may presume, suitable company for Mistress Eord ; —
At Brentford, on the west of London,
Nygh to a place that called is Syon,
There dwelt a widow of a homly sort.
Honest in substaunce and full of sport :
Dally she cowd with pastim and jestes,
Among her neyghbours and her gestes ;
She kept an inne, of ryght good lodgyng,
Eor all estates that thyder was comyng.
This is on the supposition that Eobert Copland, the writer of this tract, did not
invent the circumstances. " Gyllian of Braynford's will" is mentioned in Summers
Last Will and Testament, by T. Nash, 1600. The joke of GilUan's legacy
continued to a late period, it being alluded to in Harry White his Humour, 12mo.
Lond. printed about 1660 : — ■
The author in a recompence, to them that angry be,
Bequeaths a gift that's cald. Old Gillian's legacie.
It appears from Henslowe's Diary, p. 144, that a play entitled "Eryer Eox
and Gyllen of Branforde" was composed in 1598-9 ; and there may have been in
this some attribution of witchcraft to the latter character. There is certainly
nothing of the kind in the tract above mentioned. " I doubt that olde hag, Gilhan
of Braineford, has bewitcht me," Westward Hoe, 1607. Some of the above
particulars will be found in Webster's Works, ed. Dyce, iii. 107-8, where, however,
it may be observed that the play, mentioned as being acted in 1592, has no relation
to the present subject.
The " tale of Joane of Braineford's will" is mentioned in an epistle prefixed to
Greene's Menaphon, 1587, as a very favorite work with the illiterate.
"As the second stratagem, by which EalstafP escapes, is much the grosser of
the two, I wish it had been practised first. It is very unlikely that Eord, having
NOTES TO THE EOUUTn ACT.
been so deceived before, and knowing that lie li:ul been deceived, would suffer
him to escape in so slight a disguise." — Johnson. Does not the Doctor, in this
criticism, souiewliat overlook the iuipetuosity which forms so prominent a feature
in the character of Ford, and which would naturally lead him, in his anger, to be
enraged at any obstacle that impeded his search, rather than induce him seriously
to consider the ])robability of his being again deceived ? Either stratagem would
be })alpable in the eyes of an audience, but Eord is rendered far too confident by
the means through the aid of which he has obtained his information, to receive
readily any suspicion of his wife being prepared for the contingency of a surprise.
And such dmibenj as this is.
" Perhaps rather — such gross falsehood, and imposition. In our author's time
a daiiher and a plasterer were synonymous. See Minsheu's Diet, in v. To la?j it
on icith a trowel was a phrase of that time, applied to one who uttered a gross lie.
It may however mean, superficial external appearances. So, in King Richard
III : — So smooth he daiih d his vice with shew of virtue." — Malone.
^'^ Let him not striJce the old woman.
The word n^t :? omitted in ed. 1623, but inserted in ed. 1630, and by all the
modern editors. Douce is of opinion that " the incident in the present scene, of
EalstaflF's threshing in the habit of a woman, might have been suggested by the
story of the beaten and contented cuckold in Boccacio's Decameron, day 7, ver.
7." In this tale, the husband goes out disguised in his wife's dress, to meet her
gallant, who, previously warned by her, beats him well, and speaking as if to the
lady, reviles her for her want of chastity. The resemblance to the scene in the
present comedy is of a very trifling kind.
You rag, — gou ronyonl
Both these are terms of great contempt. The first occurs again in Timon of
Athens, the second in Macbeth. The ed. 1630 reads hagge.
You haggage, you polecat.
Tra. The Lady Aurelia Mammon ? — Mas. That very polcat; but I must tell
you, sir, they are not married yet ; if you have now a dainty devill to forbid the
banes. — Honoria and Mammon, 1659.
Under her muffler.
The early editions read, by mistake, his muffler.
If I cry out thus upon no trail.
" The expression is taken from the hunters. Trail is the scent left by the
passage of the game. To cry out, is to open or hark.'" — Johnson.
He heat him most pitifully.
Ingeram in eum multa mala, I wiU doe him many mischiefes, I will give him
many knavish words; I will raile upon him pitifully ; I will lay many things to
his charge ; I shall give him many checkes. — Terence in English, 1614.
In the way of waste.
The meaning of the passage is that, if the devil have him not as an estate in
fee simple, secured firmly by fine and recovery, and, therefore, possess him as an
absolute property, he will not attempt again to ruin us by corrupting our virtue.
No period to the jest.
That is, no conclusion or end. " Let me make the period to my curse,"
Eichard III.
NOTES TO THE EOUETH ACT.
435
^® Ay, sir; Til call them to you.
Call Mm, ed. 1623. Corrected in the third and fourth folios.
I'll sauce them.
Sauce means apparently, to pay out, to trounce. " To sawce, rustic : pro
sowce, box the ears," Thoresby's Yorkshire Words, 1703. "Yet swore, if a man
might beleeve him, that though he sunke into hell for it, he would, at one time or
other, saicce her," — Dekker's Strange Horse Eace, 1613.
*° They must come off.
Come off, i.e. pay; a common phrase in early plays. We still say come down
with the money, a similar expression. Cf. Dodsley, viii. 433. The following notes
on the phrase are entirely taken from Steevens, Earmer, and Tyrwhitt : —
^'To come off is, to pay. In this sense it is used by Massinger, in the
Unnatural Combat, where a wench, demanding money of the father to keep his
bastard, says : — 'Will you come off, sir ?' Again, in Decker's If This be Not a
Good Play, the Devil is in It, 1612 : — ' Do not your gallants come off roundly
then ?' xigain, in Heywood's If you Know not Me you Know Nobody, 1633,
p. 2 : ' — and then if he will not come off, carry him to the compter.' In A
Trick to Catch the Old One, 1608 : ' Hark in thine ear : — will he come off,
think'st thou, and pay my debts ?' Again, in the Eeturn from Parnassus, 1606 : —
' It is his meaning 1 should cot7ie off.' Again, in the Widow, by Ben Jonson,
Eletcher, and Middleton, 1652 : — 'I am forty dollars better for that: an 'twould
come off quicker, 'twere nere a whit the worse for me.' Again, in A Merye Jest
of a Man called Howleglas, bl. 1. no date : ' Therefore come of lightly, and geve
me my mony.' " — Steevens.
" They must come off, says mine host, I'll sauce them. This passage has
exercised the criticks. It is altered by Dr. Warburton ; but there is no corrup-
tion, and Steevens has rightly interpreted it. The quotation, however, from
Massinger scarcely satisfied Heath, and still less Capell, who gives us, ' They
must not come off.' It is strange that any one, conversant in old language, should
hesitate at this phrase. Take another quotation or two, that the diflBculty may be
eflPectually removed for the future. In John Heywood's play of the Eour P's,
the pedlar says : — ' If you be willing to buy, lay down money, come off quickly.'
In the Widow, ut supra, ' — if he will come off roundly, he'U set him free too.' And
again, in Eennor's Compter's Commonwealth : ' — except I would come off
roundly, I should be bar'd of that priviledge,' &c." — Tarmer.
The phrase is used by Chaucer, in the Eriar's Tale, — •
Come off, and let me riden hastily ;
Give me twelve pence ; I may no longer tarie. — Tyrwhitt.
*^ / rather icill suspect the sun with cold.
The folio reads gold, corrected by Eowe.
You know my meaning, sir : construe my words as you please : excuse me,
gentlemen, if I be uncivill : I answere in the behalfe of one, who is as free from
disloyaltie, as the sunne from darknes, or the fire from cold. — Westward for
Smelts, 1620.
*^ You say, he has heen thrown into the rivers.
The discussion respecting the tricks played upon EalstaflP had taken place
before this scene commences. Mrs. Eord and Mrs. Page had related an account
of the adventures of the buck-basket and the disguise, when the party a}ipear on
the stage, Evans remarking, — " 'Tis one of the pest discretions of a 'oman as
NOTES TO THE FOUETII ACT.
ever I did look upon." Tliat this note is necessary, clearly a])pcars from the fact
of ;Mr. Collier reconinicndino- us to read, yoii see, because "the other persons
engaged in the scene had said nothing of the kind, and Evans referred merely
to the known sufferings of Ealstaft', as a reason why he would not again be
entrapped."
^ The superstitions idle-headed eld.
Eld, old people. So in Dubartas, ap. Sylvester —
The massacre of infants and of eld,
And's royall self with thousand weapons queld.
^ Disguisd like Heme, with huge horns on his head.
" This line, which is not in the folio, was properly restored from the old quarto
by Theobald. He, at the same time, introduced another: 'We'll send him word
to meet us in the field which is clearly unnecessary, and, indeed, improper : for
the word field relates to two preceding lines of the quarto, which have not been
introduced." — JIalone.
With some diffused song.
Diffused, wild, irregular. See the notes to King Lear.
To- pinch the nnclean hnight.
See vol. i. p. 271 ; and further observations on the use of tbis prefix to, in the
notes to King John.
^'^ Pinch him sound.
Sound for soundly. Some editors read round. It is, as Steevens observes, the
adjective used as an adverb.
I will he like a jack-an-apes also.
" The idea of this stratagem, &c., might have been adopted from part of the
entertainment prepared by Thomas Churchyard for Queen Elizabeth at Norwich :
'And these boyes, &c., were to play by a devise and degrees phap'ies, and to
daunce (as neere as could be ymagined) like the phaijries. Their attire, and
comming so strangely out, I know made the Queenes highnesse smyle and laugh
withaU, &c. / ledde the yong foolishe phayries a daunce, &c., and, as I heard
said, it was well taken.' " — Steevens.
*^ And in that tire.
The original reads time, but the emendation, which belongs to Theobald, is so
reasonable, I cannot bring myself to reject it, notwithstanding AVarburton's
defence of the old text.
" Surely Page never designed Slender should steal his daughter, whilst he
went to buy the silk for her : it was not yet night ; and Mrs. Anne M as to be at
the head of the fairies, and from thence stolen. In short, I am persuaded that
Page, hearing how his wife designed their daughter should be dressed, meaning to
take advantage thereof to bring about his own plot, would say, 'and in that tire
shall Mr. Slender,' &c., i. e. attire, dress, habit." — Theobald's Letters.
" Theobald, referring that time to the time of buying the silk, alters it to tire.
But there is no need of any change ; that time evidently relating to the time of
the mask with which Falstafi* was to be entertained, and which makes the whole
subject of this dialogue. Therefore the common reading is right." — Warhurton.
In name of Brook.
The ed. 1630 reads, — " in tlie name of Broome." The rhyme here appears
to suit the name of Broom, also found in the folios.
NOTES TO THE FOURTH ACT.
437
Get us properties and tricJcing.
Properties are and were little incidental accessaries to a theatre, exclusive of
scenes and dresses. Tricking, i. e. dress. ''Attifets, attires or tires, dressings,
trickings, attirals," Cotgrave. Trick, to dress out, — Milton.
Send qiiicldy to Sir John.
Although Quickly is the person sent, the reading of the first folio seems good.
Capell well observes that Mrs. Quickly is seldom spoken of without the prefix to
her name.
There's his chamber, his house, his castle.
Note also, although no man may forcibly keep his house against the King's
officers in the cases aforesaid, yet everie mans house is (to himselfe, his family, and
his goods) as his castle, as well for his defence against injury and violence, as also
for his repose and rest. — Ballon s Counlreij Justice, 1020.
His standing-bed, and truckle-bed.
The standing-bed was the principal fixed bedstead, or any large one not
moving on castors. The truckle-bed was a smaller one, running upon truckles or
castors, and so low as to be thrust under the standing-bed during the day-time ; a
contrivance adopted for the pur-
pose of saving room. " Item,
one standinge bed," Inventory
ofSirW. Fairfax, 1558. "Shew
these gentlemen into a close
room with a standing-bed in't,
and a truckle too," Heywood's
Royal King and the Loyal Sub-
ject, 1637. "All our Persian
quilts, imbroyder'd couches, and
our standing-beds," Havenant's
Works, ed. 1673, p. 387. The
annexed engraving, representing
a nobleman in a canopied bed,
his valet occupying the truckle-
bed, is copied from an illuminated MS. of the fifteenth century. See further
observations on the subject in the notes to Eomeo and Juliet. The quarto reads,
trundle-bed.
Hell speak like an Anthropophaginian.
That is, like a cannibal. " It is here used," observes Steevens, " as a sounding
word to astonish Simple." Decker makes a verb of it. Thus, in the Wonderfull
Yeare, 1603,— " arme my trembling hand, that I may boldly rip up and anatomize
the ulcerous body of this Anthropophagized plague."
Not without great wisedome did tliat old serpent, the Anthropophagizde satyr,
cloath his hellish brood of his in humane shapes. — Behhers Strange Horse Race,
4to. Lond. 1613.
Here's a Bohemian- Tartar.
" The French call a Bohemian what we call a gjjpsejj; but I believe the Host
means nothing more than, by a wild appellation, to insinuate that Simple makes a
strange appearance." — Johnson. " In Germany there were several companies of
vagabonds, &c. called Tartars and Zigens. ' These MTre the same, in my o})inion,'
says Mezeray, ' as those the French call Bohemians, and the English gypsies,' —
Rulteel's translation of Mezeray's History of France, under the year 1-117," — Toilet.
438
NOTES TO THE EOUllTII ACT.
In .a ]n-ovincial council held at Tarragona in the year 1591, ap. Brand, there was
the following decree against them : "Ciu-anduni etiam est ut puLlici Magistralus
eos coerccant qui sc iEg}'ptiacos vel Eoheniianos vocant, quos vix constat esse
Cliristianos, nisi ex eorum relatione ; cum tamen sint mendaces, fures, et dcceptores,
ct aliis sceleribus inulti eorum assueti."
®" jyas't not the wise tcoman of Brentford I'
In our author's time, female dealers in palmistry and fortune-telling were
usually denominated ir/se icomen. So the person from whom lieywood's play of
the AMse Woman of llogsden, 1C88, takes its title, is employed in answering
many such questions as are the objects of Simple's enquiry." — Beed. Cotta, in
the Tryall of Witchcraft, ap. Erand, says : " This kinde is not obscure, at this day
swarming in this kingdom, whereof no man can be ignorant who lusteth to observe
the uncontrouled liberty and licence of open and ordinary resort in all places unto
wise men and wise teamen, so vulgarly termed for their reputed knowledge concern-
ing such deceased persons as are supposed to be bewitched."
Ay, marry, icas it, muscle- shell.
He calls poor Simple muscle-shell, observes Dr. Johnson, because he stands
with his mouth open.
Whether one Nym had the chain, or no.
" By your leave, M. Eortune-teller, 1 had a glimps on you at home at my
sister's, the widdowes ; there you provisied of the losse of a chaine ; simply tho' I
stand here, I was he that lost it," Puritaine, or the Widdow of Watling-slraete,
4to. Lond. 1607.
^'^ / ?nay not conceal them, sir.
This speech is wrongly given to EalstaflP in the first folio.
/ may not conceal them. Simple here by mistake uses conceal for reveal, and
the Host amuses himself by repeating the blunder, — "Conceal them, or thou diest."
Hanmer, not understanding the text, reads, — " Conceal them, and thou diest."
Ay, sir Tike.
The first folio reads, "Ay, sir, like," which is evidently a corruption. The
quarto reads Tihe, a base dog, and generally a term of contempt. HoweU
mentions "Yorkshire tikes," Prov. p. 21. "Base tike," Henry V. "Yo'are a
dissembling tyke," Staple of Newes, fol. ed., p. 71.
But was paid for my learning.
" He alludes to the beating which he had just received. The same play on
words occurs in Cymbeline, Act v. : ' — sorry you have paid too much, and sorry
that you are paid too much.' " — Steevens. To pay, in our author's time, as
Malone observes, often signified, to Jjeat.
Bun away with the cozeners.
The particle hy is here adopted from the Perkins MS., as in Collier's Notes
and Emendations, 1853, p. 38. 1 insert it with some hesitation, all particles
being frequently understood in works of the Shakespearian period ; but no
instance has occurred to me to confirm the original text in the present instance.
[Since writing the above, 1 observe in the Winter's Tale a passage of a
similar construction, — " 1 am appointed him to murder you," for, appointed hy. The
text may therefore remain as in the first folio ; but the above note may be
preserved as one instance, amongst many, of the danger which is incurred by
accepting alterations of the ancient readings.]
NOTES TO THE EOUUTH ACT.
439
Like three German devils, three Doctor Faustuses.
The simile was familiar to the audience, not only from Marlowe's play on the
subject of Doctor Eaustus, but from the popular history of the same talc, both
of which were formerly
much read. The an-
nexed engraving of Dr.
Eaustus conjuring up a
devil is copied from the
title-page of a metrical
version of the story,
12mo. 1664. The his-
tory, in its prose form,
was frequently entitled,
"The History of the
Damnable Life and de-
served Death of Dr.
John Eaustus," as on
a title-page of the work
now before me, which
was "printed by C.
Brown for M. Hotham
at the Black Boy on
London-bridge," and
in which there is an enlarged copy of the wood-engraving here given. As
early as the year 1588, there was licensed a ballad on the story of Dr.
Eaustus.
Ajid liquor fishermen s hoots icith me.
Liquor, to grease with oil, or other liquid. "Well liquor d were his boots,
and wonderous wide," Musarum Delicia3, 1656. " They are people who will not
put on a boot which is not as well liquored as themselves," Walk Knaves Walk,
1659. "Eor your boots lickquoring, 0. 1. 0.," MS. accounts, 1683.
Give 'em fresh litt'r, and rub their heeles ;
You wagoners, liquor your wheeles,
That all the day long we may fight.
Till we be parted by dark night. — Homer a la Mode, 1665.
That vessel consecrated oyl contains,
Which some profaner hereticks would use
Eor liquoring wheels of jacks, of boots, and shooes.
Oldham's Satyrs, Svo. Lond. 1685, p. 80.
Doctor, said Tom, standing at the stair foot, will you have one or both
dressed ? He, supposing he meant the liquoring of the hoots, cried out in a
passion, — You rascal, let them both be done, for what should 1 do with one ? The
cook, hearing wdiat he said, immediately set on the great pot, and boded the boots
till they were tender. — The Mad Pranhs of Tom Tram, n. d.
''^ Till 1 were as crest-fallen as a dried pear.
" To ascertain the propriety of this similitude, it may be observed that pears,
when they are dried, become flat, and lose the erect and oblong form that, in
their natural state, distinguishes them from apples." — Steevetis.
Since I forsicore myself at primero.
See an account of this game in the notes to Henry YIIl.
t
NOTES TO THE EOUllTII ACT.
''^ To Bay my jirayers.
These words, omitted in tlie foho, are taken from the early quarto.
As
Malonc observes, they were probably left out of the former on account of the
Statute, 3 Jac. I. ch. 21.
My admirable dexterity of wit.
" This so sodaine dexterity of wit in Isabella was not onely admired by all the
company, but likewise passed with as generall approbation," Decameron, ed. 1620.
Counterfeiting the action of an old woman.
Theobald unnecessarily proposes to read icood tcoman. " I am not certain
that this change is necessary. Ealstaff, by counterfeiting such weakness and
infirmity as would naturally be pitied in an old woman, averted the punishment
to which he would otherwise have been subjected, on the supposition that he was
a witch." — Steevens.
" The reading of the old copy is fully supported by what EalstaflP says after-
wards to Eord : ' I went to her, master Brook, as you see, like a poor old man ;
but I came from her, master Brook, like a poor old woman.' " — Malone.
" Theobald should have considered that all old women were not suspected of
being witches, at the time this play was written, nor set in the stocks as such ;
unfortunately, Sir John was taken dressed in the very cloaths of the wise woman
of Brainford, a generally reputed witch, and from this appearance believed to be
herself in person, till, by dexterously managing his disguise, he persuaded the
constable and mob that he was a quite diflPerent woman, and not the witch they
had taken him for, and that without being himself detected." — Heath.
The hiave constable had set
me i'the stocks.
The stocks here engraved by Mr.
Eairholt represent an old pair of stocks
of the Elizabethan period, which stood,
so late as the year 1833, in the cloisters
adjoining St. George's Chapel in Windsor
Castle. They are now removed, and
the present drawing is, in all probability,
the only record of them at this time
remaininf?.
'^^ / tcill give over all.
I will have no more to do with the business. My mind is so heavy, I cannot
attend to anything.
The mirth whereof.
" Thus the old copy. Pope and all the subsequent editors read — The mirth
irlioreofs so larded, &c. but the old reading is the true one, and the phraseology
that of Sliakespeare's age. Whereof was formerly used as we now use thereof;
'— the mirth ihererf hemg so larded,' &c. So, in Mount Tabor, or Private Exercises
of a Penitent Sinner, 8vo. 1G39 : ' In the mean time [they] closely conveyed under
the cloaths wherewithal he was covered, a vizard, like a swine's snout, upon his
face, with three wire chains fastened thereunto, the other end whereof hemg holden
severally by those three ladies ; who fall to singing again,' &c." — Malone.
7^ Wherein fat Falstaff.
The word icherein, omitted in ed. 1G23, is taken from the quarto edition. The
NOTES TO THE EOUETH ACT.
441
editor of the second folio, arbitrarily reads, says Malone, to supply the metre, —
" fat Sir John FalstaflP." Instead of a great scene, the quarto reads, a mighty
scare, i. e. share. Scene here would bear very much the same interpretation.
'^^ The purpose why is here.
That is, as Steevens observes, in the letter.
While other jests are something ranh on foot.
That is, while other jests are numerous and being eagerly followed. " Trees
shoote out branches over rankely, luxuriantur arhores," Baret, 1580.
''^ Even strong against that match.
The quarto reads, Now her mother, still against. In the text, the word even
must be construed equally (the adjective used for the adverb), afar better meaning
than that suggested by the substitution ever.
''^ The better to denote her to the doctor.
The first folio reads denote. The present emendation, which was suggested
by Steevens, is fully supported by a subsequent passage, quoted by him : " — the
white Avill decipher her well enough." — Malone.
II. 50
d il^t Jfiftlj.
SCENE I. — A Room in the Garter Inn.
Enter Falstaff and Mrs. Quickly.
Fal. Prithee, no more prattling: — go. I '11 hold :^ This is the
third time ; I hope good hick lies in odd numbers. Away, go;
they say there is divinity in odd numbers,^ either in nativity,
chance, or death.^ — Away.
Quick. I '11 provide you a chain : and I '11 do what I can to
get you a pair of horns.
Fal. Away, I say ; time wears : hold up your head, and
mince.* [Exit Mrs. Quickly.
Enter Ford.
How now, master Brook? Master Brook, the matter will be
known to-night, or never. Be you in the Park about midnight,
at Heme's oak, and you shall see wonders.
Ford. Went you not to her yesterday, sir, as you told me you
had appointed?
Fal. I went to her, master Brook, as you see, like a poor old
man: but I came from her, master Brook, like a poor old
woman. That same knave. Ford her husband, hath the finest
mad devil of jealousy in him, master Brook, that ever governed
frenzy. I will tell you: — He beat me grievously, in the shape
of a woman; for in the shape of man, master Brook, I fear not
Goliah with a weaver's beam; because I know also, life is a
shuttle.^ I am in haste; go along with me; I '11 tell you all,
THE MERrvY WIVES OE AVINDSOll. [vex v. sc. iii.
master Brook. Since I })liieke(l <2;eese,'' played truant, and
^vhi|)ped top, I knew not what 't was to be beaten till kitely.
Follow me: I '11 tell you stranj^e tliin"-s of this knave Ford, on
\vliom to-night I will be reYen<>;ed; and I will deliver his wife
into your hand. — Follow: Strange things in hand, master Brook!
follow. [Exeunt.
SCENE II.— Windsor Little Park.
Enter Page, Shallow, and Slender.
P(f(/e. Come, come; we '11 couch i' the castle-ditch, till we
see the light of our fairies. — Remember, son Slender, my
daughter.'
Slen. Ay, forsooth; I have spoke with her, and we have a
nay-word, how to know one another. I come to her in white,
and cry mum; she cries budfjet; and by that we know one
another.
SJutl. That's good too: but Avhat needs either your mum, or
her hud(jeti^ the white will decipher her well enough. — It hath
struck ten o'clock.
Page. The night is dark; light and spirits will become it well.
Heaven prosper our sport! No man means evil but the devil,'^
and we shall know him by his horns. Let 's away; follow
me.^° [Exeunt.
SCENE III.— ^ Street in Windsor.
Enter Mrs. Page, Mrs. Ford, and Dr. Caius.
Mrs. Page. Master doctor, my daughter is in green: when
you see your time, take her by the hand, away with her to the
Deanery, and dispatch it quickly: Go before into the Park; we
two must go together.
Caius. I know vat I have to do: Adien.
Mrs. Page. Fare you well, sir. [Exit Caius.] My husband
will not rejoice so much at the abuse of FalstafF, as he will chafe
at the doctor's marrying my daughter: but 't is no matter; better
a little chiding than a great deal of heartbreak.
Mrs. Ford. Where is Nan now, and her troop of fairies, and
the Welsh devil, Hugh?"
Mrs. Page. They are aU couched in a pit hard by Heme's oak.
ACT Y. SC. v.] THE MEEHY WIVES OE WINDSOR.
445
with obscured lights ; which, at the very instant of Falstaif 's and
our meeting, they will at once display to the night.
Mrs. Ford. That cannot choose but amaze him.
Mrs. Page. If he be not amazed, he will be mocked; if lie be
amazed, he will every way be mocked.
Mrs. Ford. We '11 betray him finely.
Mrs. Parje. Against such lewdsters, and their lechery,
Those that betray them do no treachery.
Mrs. Ford. The hour draws on. To the oak, to the oak!
\E:xeunt.
SCENE IV.— The Little Park.
Enter Sir Hugh Evans, and Fairies.
Eva. Trib, trib, fairies; come; and remember your parts : be
pold, I pray you; follow me into tlie pit, and when I give the
wateh-'ords, do as I pid you; Come, come; trib, trib. \_Exeiint.
SCENE v.— The Park near Heme's Oak.
Enter Falstaff, disguised, with a buck's head on.
Fal. The Windsor bell hath struck twelve; the minute draws
on: Now, tlie hot-blooded gods assist me! — Remember, Jove,
thou Avast a bull for thy Europa; Love set on thy horns. O
powerful IjOvc! that, in some respects, makes a beast a man; in
some other, a man a beast. You were also, Jupiter, a swan, for
the love of Leda: — O, omnipotent Love ! how near the god drew
to the complexion of a goose! — A fault done first in the form of
a beast; — O Jove, a beastly fault! and then another fault in
the semblance of a fowl ; think on 't, Jove; a foul fault. When
gods have hot^^ backs, what shall poor men do? For me, I
am here a Windsor stag; and the fattest, I think, i' the forest:
Send me a cool rut-time, Jove, or who can blame me to piss my
tallow?^^ Who comes here? my doe?
Enter Mrs. Ford, and Mrs. Page.
M7's. Ford. Sir John? art thou there, my deer? my male deer?
Fal. My doe with the black scut !^^ — Let the sky rain potatoes;
let it thunder to the tune of Green Sleeves;^' hail kissing-
THE MEUUY WIVES OF WINDSOR. [act v. sc. v.
comfits/ and snow cringocs;^^ let there come a tempest of
provocation, I will shelter me here. [Emhmcmfj her.
Mrs. Ford. ^listrcss Pa^-c is come with me, sweetheart.
Fal. Divide me like a hrih'd-huck,^*^ each a hanncli : I will
keep my sides to myself, my shonlders for the fellow of this
walk,^" and my horns 1 hecpieath your hushands. Am I a
woodman ? ha ! Speak I like Heme the hunter ? — Why, now is
Cupid a child of conscience ; he makes restitution. As I am a
true spirit, welcome !
l^Fhere is a murmuring noise heard, which gradually increases.
Mrs. Page. Alas ! Avhat noise !
Mrs. Ford. Heaven forgive our sins I
Fal. What should this he ?
Mrs. Ford.) . • rui jr
Mrs. Page.) ^^^^^ * ^ ^ ^^'^
Fal. I think the devil will not have me damned, lest the oil
that 's in me should set hell on fire ; he would never else cross
me thus.
Enter Sir Hugh Evans, like a satyr; Mrs. Quickly, and
Pistol; Anne Page, as the Fairy Quee?i, attended by her
brother and others, dressed like fairies, ivith tvaxen tapers on their
heads.
Anne. Fairies, black, grey, green, and white,~°
You moonshine revellers, and shades of night.
You orphan heirs of fixed destiny,"^
Attend your office and your quality.
Crier Hobgoblin, make the fairy o-yes.^^
Pist. Elves, list your names ; silence, you airy toys.
Cricket, to Windsor chimneys shalt thou leap :
Where fires thou find'st unrak'd,"^ and hearths unswept.
There pinch the maids as blue as bilberry:^"
Our radiant Queen hates sluts and sluttery.
Fal. They are fairies ; he that speaks to them shall die
I '11 wink and couch : no man their works must eye.
[Lies down upon his face.
Era. Where 's Pead?"^ — Go you, and where you find a maid,
That, ere she sleep, has thrice her prayers said,
Raise up the organs of her fantasy,"^
Sleep she as sound as careless infancy;
ACT V. SC. v.] THE MEREY WIVES OE WINDSOE.
447
But those as sleep,"^ and think not on their sins,
Pinch them, arms, legs, backs, shoulders, sides, and shins.
Anne. About, about !
Search Windsor Castle, elves, within and out :
Strew good luck, ouphes, on every sacred room \ ^
That it may stand till the perpetual doom,
In state as wholesome,^^ as in state 't is fit, —
Worthy the owner, and the owner it.^^
The several chairs of order look you scour
With juice of balm,^^ and every precious flower :
Each fair instalment, coat, and several crest.
With loyal blazon evermore be bless'd !
And nightly, meadow-fairies, look, you sing,
Like to the Garter's compass, in a ring :
Th' expressure that it bears, green let it be.
More fertile-fresh than all the fiekl to see ;
And, Honi soit quimal y pense, write,^*
In emerald tuffs,^° flowers purple, blue, and white i^^
Like sapphire, pearl, and rich embroidery,
Buckled below fair knighthood's bending knee : —
Fairies use flowers for their charactery.^'
Away; disperse: But till 't is one o'clock,
Our dance of custom, round about the oak
Of Ilerne the hunter, let us not forget.
Eva, Pray you, lock hand in hand; yourselves in order set:
And twenty glow-worms shall our lanterns be,
'Vo o-uide our measure round about the tree. .
But, stay: I smell a man of middle-earth.^^
Fal. Heavens defend me from that Welsh fairy,
Lest he transform me to a piece of cheese!
Fist. Vild worm, thou wast o'erlook'd^'^ even in thy birth.
Anne. With trial-fire touch me his finger end.
If he be chaste, the flame will back descend,
And turn him to no pain ;*° but if he start,
It is the flesh of a corrupted heart.
Pist. A trial, come.
Eva. Come, will this wood take Are?
\_Thetj burn him with their tapera.
Fal. Oh, oh, oh !
Anne. Corrupt, corrupt, and tainted in desire !
About him, fairies; sing a scornful rhyme.
And, as you trip, still pinch him to your time.*^
THE MEREY AVIVES OE WINDSOE. [act v. sc. y.
SONG.
Eie on sinM fantasy
Eie on lust and luxury !
Lust is but a bloody fire/^
Kindled with unchaste desire,
Eed in heart ; whose flames aspire,
As thouo'hts do blow them, higher and higher.
Pinch him, fairies, nnitually ;
Pinch him for his villainy ;
Pinch him, and burn him, and turn him about,
Till candles, and starlight, and moonshine be out.
JDnring this song the fairies pinch Falstaff.'^^ Doctor Caius
comes one wftt/, (md steals awaij a fairij in green; SiiENDER another
wag, and takes off a fairg in white; and Fenton comes, and steals
awag Axne Page. A noise of hunting is heard from within.
All the fairies run awag. Falstaff pulls off his buck's head,
and rises.
Eiiter Page, Ford, Mrs. Page, and Mrs. Ford.
Theg tahe hold of FalstafF.
Page. Nay, do not Hy; I think we have watch'd you now:
AVill none hut II erne the hunter serve your turn?
Mrs. Page. I pray you, come; hold up the jest no higher:
Now, good sir John, how hke you Windsor wives ?
See you these, hushand? do not these fair yokes^"
Become the forest better than the town?
Ford. Now, sir, avIio 's a cuckold now ? — Master Brook,
Falstalf 's a knave, a cuckoldly knave ; here are his horns, master
Brook : And, master Brook, he hath enjoyed nothing of Ford's
hut his buck-basket, his cudgel, and twenty pounds of money,
which must be paid to master Ford \ ^ his horses are arrested for
it, master Brook.
Mrs. Ford. Sir John, we have had ill luck ; we could never
meet. I will never take you for my love again, but I will
always count you my deer.*^
Fal. I do begin to perceive that I am made an ass.
Ford. Ay, and an ox too ; both the proofs are extant.
Fal. And these are not fairies ? I was three or four times in
the thought they were not fairies : and yet the guiltiness of my
mind, the sudden surprise of my powers, drove the grossness of
the foppery into a received belief, in despite of tlie teeth of all
rhyme and reason, that they were fairies. See, now, how ^\\t
may be made a Jack-a-Lent,^** when 't is upon ill employment.
ACT V. SC. v.] THE MEREY WIVES OF WINDSOR.
449
Eva. Sir John FalstafF, serve Got, and leave your desires, and
fairies will not pinse you.
Ford. Well said, fairy Hugh.
Eva. And leave you your jealousies too, I pray you.
Ford. I will never mistrust my wife again, till thou art able
to woo her in good English.
Fal. Have I laid my brain in the sun, and dried it, that it
wants matter to prevent so gross o'erreaching as this? Am I
ridden with a Welsh goat too ? Shall I have a coxcomb of frize?^^
'Tis time I w ere choked with a piece of toasted cheese.
Eva. Seese is not good to give putter ; your pelly is all putter.
Fal. Seese and putter ! have I lived to stand at the taunt of
one that makes fritters of English This is enough to be the decay
of lust and late-walking through the realm.
Mrs. Page. Why, sir John, do you think, though we would
have thrust virtue out of our hearts by the head and shoulders,
and have given ourselves without scruple to hell, that ever the
devil could have made you our delight ?
Ford. What, a hodge-pudding a bag of flax ?
Mrs. Page. A pufled man ?
Page. Old, cold, withered, and of intolerable entrails?
Ford. And one that is as slanderous as Satan?
Page. And as poor as Job?
Ford. And as wicked as his wife?
Eva. And given to fornications, and to taverns, and sack, and
wine, and metheglins, and to drinkings, and swearings, and
starings, pribbles and prabbles?
Fal. Well, I am your theme: you have the start of me; I
am dejected;^' I am not able to answer the Welsh flannel:'^
ignorance itself is a plummet o'er me;^* use me as you will.
Ford. Marry, sir, we '11 bring you to Windsor, to one master
Brook, that you have cozened of money, to whom you should
have been a pander: over and above that you have suffered, I
think, to repay that money will be a biting affliction.
Page. Yet be cheerful, knight: thou shalt eat a posset to-
night at my liouse; where I will desire thee to laugh at my
wife, that now laughs at thee: Tell her, master Slender hath
married her daughter.
Mrs. Page. Doctors doubt that; if Anne Page be my daughter,
she is, by this, doctor Caius' wife. [Aside.
II.
57
450
THE MERUY WIVES OE AVINDSOE. [act v. sc. v.
Elder Slender.
Slen. Wlioo, ho! ho! fjitlicr Page!
Page. Son! how now? how now, son? have you despatched?
Slen. Despatched! — I '11 make the hest in Glo'stershire know
on 't; would I were hanged, la, else.'^'^
Page. Of what, son?
Slen. I came yonder at Eton to marry mistress Anne Page,
and she 's a great luhherly hoy ! If it had not heen i' the church,
I would have swinged him, or he should have swinged me. If
I did not think it had hecn Anne Page, would I might never stir,
and — 't is a postmaster's hoy !
Page. Upon my life, then, you took the wrong.
Slen. ^Yhat need von tell me that? I think so, when I took a
boy for a girl : If I had heen married to him, for all he was in
woman's ajjparel, I would not have had him.
Page. Why, this is your own folly. Did not I tell you how
you should know my daughter by her garments?
Slen. I went to her in white," and cried mum, and she cried
hiidgef, as Anne and I had appointed; and yet it was not Anne,
but a postmaster's boy.
Page. O, I am vexed at heart:" What shall I do?
Mi's. Page. Good George, be not angry: I knew of your
purpose; turned my daughter into green; and, indeed, she is
now with the doctor at the Deanery, and there married.
Enter Doctor Caius.
Caius. Vere is mistress Page? By gar, I am cozened ; I ha'
married iin gareon, a boy; un palsan, by gar, a boy; it is not
Anne Page: by gar, I am cozened.
Mrs. Page. Why, did you take her in green?
Cains. Ay, be gar, and 't is a boy; be gar, I '11 raise all
AYindsor. [Ex'lt Caius.
Eord. This is strange: Who hath got the right Anne?
Page. My heart misgives me: Here conies master Fenton.
Enter Fenton and Anne Page.
How now, master Fenton?
Anne. Pardon, good father! good my mother, pardon!
Page. Now, mistress? how chance you went not with master
Slender?
Mrs. Page. Why went you not with master doctor, maid ?
ACT V. SC. v.] THE MEEEY WIVES OE WINDSOR.
451
Fent. You do amaze her: Hear the truth of it.
You would have married her most shamefully,
Where there was no proportion held in love.
The truth is, she and I, long since contracted,
Are now so sure that nothing can dissolve us.
Th' offence is holy that she hath committed:
And this deceit loses the name of craft,
Of disobedience, or unduteous title
Since therein she doth evitate and shun
A thousand irreligious cursed hours.
Which forced marriage would have brought upon her.
Ford. Stand not amaz'd: here is no remedy:
In love, the Heavens themselves do guide the state;
Money buys lands, and wives are sold by fate.
Fal. I am glad, though you have ta'en a special stand to
strike at me, that your arrow hath glanced.
Page. Well, what remedy P''" Fenton, Heaven give thee joy!
What cannot be eschew'd, must be embrac'd."
Fal. When night-dogs run, all sorts of deer are chas'd.^^
Mrs. Page. Well, I will muse no further: master Fenton,
Heaven give you many, many merry days!
Good husband, let us every one go home,
And laugh this sport o'er by a country fire
Sir John and all.
Ford. Let it be so: — Sir John,
To master Brook you yet shall hold your word;
For he, to-night, shall lie with mistress Ford. [Exeunt.
That is, I will keep to my agreement. " I liolde it, as we saye whan we make
bargen,j> le tiens; lay downe your monaye, I holde it, siis houtez vostre argent, je
le tiens," Palsgrave, 1530.
^ There is a divinity in odd numbers.
" Numero Deus impare gaudet," Virg. Eclog. viii. Compare the commentary
of Serviiis on this passage, which is quoted, with a like application to that in the
text, in Ravenscroft's Mamamouchi, 1075. In setting a hen, says Grose, the
good women hold it an indispensable rule to put an odd number of eggs : all sorts
of remedies are directed to be taken three, seven, or nine times.
Her instauration was somewhat strange.
Led by nine vestals, for th' odde number was
Highly esteemed in their sacred range.
As by the poet in his quaffing glasse.
. Whiting'' s Albino and Bellama, 1638, p. 30.
^ Either in nativitij, chance, or death.
Chance, matters of chance. Theobald suggested to read, chains.
* Hold up your head, and mince.
Mince, to walk affectedly, with short steps. The term is here equivalent to
trip— time goes, so trip along. " Two mincing steps," Merch. Ven. So, in
Stubbes's Anatomy of Abuses, — "And not onlie upon these things do they spend
their goods, or rather the goods of the poore, but also in pride, their summum
gatidium; and upon their dansing minions, that minse it full gingerlie, God Avot,
tripping like gotes, that an egge wold not brek under their feet." — Malone.
^ Life is a shuttle.
An allusion to the sixth verse of the seventh chapter of the Book of Job :
" My days are swifter than a weaver's shuttle^' &c. — Steevens.
Since I pluclced geese.
" The allusion is to the school-boys' custom of plucking quills out of the wings
of geese, not only on the commons where they graze, but in the markets, as they
hang by the neck, from the hands of the farmers who are selling them. There
are not many boyish diversions preferable to the chase of a flock of geese on a wide
454
NOTES TO THE EIETH ACT.
conimon, for this pnri)osc. 'Scholars law — pull a goose, and let her go!' is a
dislich, which, if the boys in the North be not degenerated from wliat they were
sixty years ago, may be heard there almost every day in the year : and may be
seen practised on every waste common." — Sherwen MSS., c. 1810.
^ Bememher, son Slender, my daughter.
" The word daughter was inadvertently omitted in the first folio. The emen-
dation was made by tlie editor of the second." — Malone.
^ What needs either your mum, or her budget?
Mum-hudget was a cant word, implying silence. " But, niumhouget, for
Carisophus 1 espie," Damon and Pithias, 1571. " Eor no other reason in the
earth, but because I woidd not let him go beyond me, or be won to put my finger
in my mouth, and crie mumhudget^' Nash's Have with You to Saffron Walden,
159G. "Ay, to mum withal; but he plays mum-budget with me," Untrussing of
tlie Humorous Poet. " So Master Woodcock, like a woodcock, bit his lip, and,
mumbudget, Avas silent," Tarlton's Jests, 1611. " If a man call them to accomptes,
and aske the cause of al these their tragical and cruel doings, he shaU have a
short answer with mum-budget," Oration against the unlawful Insurrections of the
Protestants, 1615, cited by Eeed. ''Avoir le bee gele, to play mumbudget, to be
tongue-tyed, to say never a word," Cotgrave. " To play at mumbudget, demtirer
court ne sonner mot," HoweU. " Then 1 twirl his hat thrice round his head,
and give him not a word but Hum Budget" Win her and Take her, 1691, p. 48 ;
another instance at p. 49, ibid.
Mum budget, not a word. In an inventory of such household stuff', it is ill
falling to particulars ; such universal propositions or prepositions require no
instance. — Ulysses upon Ajax, 1596.
For she is the maine storehouse of secresie, the maggazin of taciturnity, the
clozet of connivence, the mumbudget of silence, the cloathbagge of counsel!, and
the capcase, fardle, packe, male (or female), of friendly toleration. — Taylor s
Worhes, fol. Lond. 1630.
" No man means evil but the devil.
Warburton reads unnecessarily, no one. It was usual to term spiritual beings,
men; although here, as Malone observes. Page may indirectly allude to Ealstaff,
who was to be disguised like Heme the hunter, with horns on his head.
^° Let 's away; folloio me.
The old MS. previously cited reads, — " Let's away ; come, son Slender, follow
me." This is of no authority.
" And the Welsh devil, Ilugh.
Tlie folio reads Heme, instead of Hugh. The obvious blunder, which probably
arose from the name in the original manuscript having been indicated by the
initial only, was corrected by Dr. Thirlby and Theobald. Theobald reads, Evans.
When gods have hot bacJcs.
" I wonder what 1 have eaten and drunk at the marchant's house, I find
myself so hot," Taylor's Workes, 1630. An argument similar to that in the text
is used in Terence's Eunuchi, iii. 5, where a youth defends his loving propensities
from observing a picture of Jupiter and Danae, and by commenting upon it. The
same thought, says Malone, is found in Lyly's Euphues, 1580: — "I think in
those days love was well ratified on earth, when lust was so full authorized by the
gods in heaven."
NOTES TO THE EIETH ACT.
455
Who can hlame me to piss my tallow?
So, in Turbervile's Booke of Hunting, 1575, ap. Farmer, " During the time
of their rut, the rats live with small sustenance : — the red mushroome helpeth
well to make them ppsse their greace, they are then in so vehement heate," &c.
In E-ay's Collection of Proverbs, the phrase is yet further explained: — ''He has
piss'd his tallow. This is spoken of bucks who grow lean after rutting-time,
and may be applied to men." The phrase, liowever, is of Erench extraction.
Jacques de Eouillou, in his quarto volume entitled La Venerie, also tells us that
stags in rutting time live chiefly on large red mushrooms, " qui aident fort a leur
faire pisser le suify — Steevens.
^* My doe with the hlach scut?
Scut, a hunting term, is here improperly applied, being used only for the tail
of a hare or rabbit. " Of the hare and conie, the scut," is amongst the " tearmes
of the tayle" in Manwood. " Between my knees and mounting scut," Musarum
Delicise, 1656.
Let it thunder to the tune of Green Sleeves.
The ballad of Green Sleeves, also referred to previously at p. 328, was printed
in 1580, being licensed to Bichard Jones in that year, on September 8d, as "A
new northen dittye of the Laly grene sieves." It rapidly attained great popu-
larity, and an answer to it soon appeared, entitled, " the Ladie Greene Sleeves
answere to Donkyn his frende," licensed in 1580, Collier's Extr. Stat. Beg., ii.
121. Several other interesting entries respecting it appear in the same volume,
viz., " a ballad intituled Greene Sieves and Countenaunce, in Countenaunce is
Greenesleves," 1580; "Greene Sieves moralised to the Scripture, declaringe the
manifold benefites and blessinges of God bestowed on sinfull man," 1580 ; " a
ballad intituled a merry newe Northen songe of greene sieves, begynninge, the
boniest lasse in all the land," 1580 : " a ballad intituled a Beprehension againste
greene sieves, by William Elderton," 1581 ; " a ballad intituletl, Greene sleeves is
worne awaie, Yellowe sleeves comme to decaie, Blacke sleeves I holde in despite.
But white sleeves is my delighte," 1581. Tliere is an adaptation of the original
ballad of Green Sleeves in Bobinson's Handful of Pleasant Delites, 1584,
entitled, "A new coiu^tly Sonet of tlie Lady Greensleeves, to the new tune of
Greensleves," which commences as foUows, —
Greensleeves was all my joy,
Greensleeves was my delight ;
Greensleeves was my hart of gold.
And who but Lady Greensleeves.
There can be but little doubt that the first ballad of Lady Greensleeves was a
much looser production than the one printed by Bobinson. See Beaumont and
Eletclier, ed. Lyce, vi. 55 ; vii. 170. It appears also that a woman of ill character
was popularly termed a Lady Green-sleeves.
Such another device it is as the godly ballet of John Carelesse, or the song of
Greene sleeves moralized. — Nash's Have %nth you to Saffron Walden, 1596.
Ale will make a man sing Selengers Bound to the tune of Greene Sleeves, or
Trenchmore to the tune of Laugh and lye down. — Ale Ale-vated, 1051.
Breeding, yes; could 1 not play, 1 am the Duke of Norfolk, Green Sleeves,
and the fourth Psalm upon the virginals ; and did 1 not leai-n, and could })lay six
lessons upon the Viol de Gambo before 1 went to that nasty, stinking, wicked
town; out on't? — Epsom TFells, 1673.
Spr. Nay, nay, never minde him, man, but on with your Song. — Trap. Cuds
45G
NOTES TO THE EIETH ACT.
bud, it's the finest song you c're licard in yoiu* life. The clerk of our parish
sings it rarel}' to the tunc of the Sixteenth Fsalm, and it will c/o to Green sleeves;
but that's all one. — I'll sing it as well as I can. — The Woman turned
Ihtlhj, 1075.
Ihiiforniity and coherence was Green Sleeves and piidding-pTjes, and that
irregularity and nonsense were the chief perfections of tlic drama. — Broicns
Letters from the Dead to the Living, ed. 1707, p. 61.
The number of these is almost infinite, but I stay only for a new edition of
the Yoluuiinous Eustathius upon llonier, and then I will proceed to make their
parallel with Green Sleeves, Health to Betty, Parson upon Dorothy, Cold and
Eaw, and many others, for which 1 hope to have the learned world's assistance. —
Us(fid Transactions in Thilosophy, 1709.
There was a dance called Green Sleeves, thus described in the Newest and
Complcat Academy of Complements, 1714): — ''Green Sleeves. — Change sides;
first man and second woman side to one another, and go right hands round, first
woman and second man do the same ; then the first couple cross over behind the
second couple, and turn round; then they lead up, and casting off", turn round
again ; so it ends. The Second Part. — Keep your side, then back to back with
the contrary partner; then the other do the same, then round hands all four, and
fall back, then cross over, and lead up and cast off, and lead down and cast ofP
again ; and so on." The dance-tune is mentioned in Prior's Alma, 2nd canto.
Green-sleeves is also noticed as a dance-tune in another passage in the work of
Nash, above quoted, 1596.
The tune of Green-sleeves, observes Mr. Chappell, is the same as. Which
Jsohodij can deny, and Christmas comes hut once a year. It was also called
'Green Sleeves and Pudding Pies' (mentioned in Bold's Poems, 1685), as well as,
'Green Sleeves and yellow Lace;' and numerous songs were arranged to it, but
the former is said by Nares to be merely the first line of a political parody.
According to Douce, ed. 1839, p. 484, the tune is still used in the Beggar's
Opera, in the song of, ' Since laws were made for every degree.' The tune itself is
given in Chappell's National Airs, 1838.
Hail Mssing-comfits.
"Kissing -comfits were sugar-plums, perfumed to make the breath sweet.
Monsieur Le Grand D'Aussi, in his Histoire de la Vie privee des Erangais, vol. ii.
p. 273, observes — ' II y avait aussi de petits drageoirs qu'on portait en poche pour
avoir, dans le jour, de quoi se parfimer la bouche.' So also in Webster's Duchess
of Malfy, 1623 : — ' Sure your pistol holds nothing but perfumes or Mssing-comfits^
In Swetnan Arraign'd, 1620, these confections are called Mssing- causes; — 'Their
very breath is sophisticated with amber-pellets, and hissing-causes' Again, in A
A ery Woman, by Massinger: — 'Comfits of ambergris to help <d\\x Misses^ Eor
eating these, Queen Mab may be said, in Borneo and Juliet, plague their lips
with hlisters," — Steevens.
They thought they should never get the taste out of their mouths, yet they
took immediately fifty pipes of tobacco between five of them, and an ounce or two of
Vissing-comfits. — Harrington s Ajjology, 1596.
AMth him he stayes half a yere, rubbing his toes, and following him with his
sprinkling-glasse and his box of Mssing- con fets from place to place. — JVash's Have
with You to Saffron Walden, 1596.
Noe haile of comfits, showers of water swete,
Noe angels servitours as had bin meete.
The Newe Metamorphosis, MS. written c. 1600.
NOTES TO THE EIETH ACT.
457
To make Mushedines, called Bising- Comfits or Kissing -Comfits. — Take half a
pound of refined sugar, being beaten and searched, put into it two grains of musk,
a grain of civet, two grains of ambergreese, and a thimble-fidl of white orris
powder ; beat all these with gum-dragon steeped in rose-water ; then roul it as
thin as you can, and cut it into little lozenges with your iging [qu. iron ?], and
stow them in some warm oven or stove ; then box them and keep them all the year.
Mays Accomplished Cook, 1671, p. 271, ap. Nares.
" Shakespeare, very probably, had the following artificial tempest in his
thoughts, when he put the words on which this note is founded into the mouth of
EalstafF. Holinshed informs us that, in the year 1583, for the entertainment of
Prince Alasco, was performed ' a verie statelie tragedie named Dido, wherein the
queen's banket (with J^^neas' narration of the destruction of Troie) was lively
described in a marchpaine patterne, — tJie tempest wherein it hailed small coifiects,
rained rose-water, and snew an artificial kind of snow, all strange, marvellous and
abundant.' Brantome also, describing an earlier feast given by the Vidam of
Chartres, says, — 'Au dessert, il y cut un orage artificiel qui, pendant une demie
heure entiere, fit tomber une pluie d'eaux odorantes, et un grele de drage'es.'
Though 1 will not undertake to prove that all the culinary pantomimes exhibited
in France and Italy were known and imitated in this kingdom, 1 may observe that
flying, rising, and descending services were to be found at entertainments given by
the Duke of Burgundy, &c. in 1453, and by the Grand Duke of Tuscany in 1600,
&c. See M. Le Grand D'Aussi's Histoire de la Vie privee des Eran9ois, vol. iii. p.
294, kcr—Steevens.
And snow eringoes.
" Payde so much for eringoes to provoke," Taylor's Motto, 1622. " Whose
root th' eringo is, the reines that doth inflame," Drayton. " The roots, condited
or preserved with sugar, do exceedingly refresh and comfort the body, and restore
the naturall moysture ; they are very greatly availeable for old and aged people,
and for such as are Aveak by nature, refreshing and restoring the one, and
amending the defects of nature in the other ; they excite and give an ability to
embracements," Venner's Via Recta ad Vitam Longam, 1637. " Sure he has
eat eringoes, he's as hot," Mayne's Citye Match, fol. 1639, p. 47. " Master
Mixum, an apothecary, at whose shop I use to eate eringo roots," Glapthorne's
Hollander, 1640. " Potent eringos," Cartwright's Siedge or Love's Convert,
1651, p. 107. They are classed with " lascivious meats" in Burton's Anatomy
of Melancholy, ed. 1652, p. 547 ; and with other provocatives, in the Poor Man's
Comfort, 1655 ; in the play of Lover's Luck, 1696, p. 37 ; and, even as late as
1783, they are mentioned in a similar way in the New Crazy Tales, p. 28.
Numerous receipts for preserving and candying eringo roots, as they were eaten
for this object, are given in old works on cookery and confectionary.
Divide me like a hriJ/d hick.
So the old copies. BriVd, i. e. stolen. " Bribed signetts" are mentioned in Eot.
Pari., as quoted by Tyrwhitt; and Palsgrave has, "I bribe, I pidl, I pyll."
My shoulders for the fellow of this walk.
A ti'alk was a particular keeper's district. Windsor forest was parcelled out
into walks, as appears from Norden's map, 1607. " Tell me, forester, under whom
maintainest thou walke,"" Lodge's Eosalynde, 1592, ap. Malone ; and again,
" Thus, for two or three days he walked up and down with his brother, to shew him
all the commodities that belonged to his lualke," ibid.
" To which purpose it happened well that the well itselfe falletli within ilu3
limits of a walke in the forrest, which hath long time been kept and watched by
n. 58
458
NOTES TO THE EIETII ACT.
one John Erotlshain, the hoc per of (hut /ral/re, who was a very fit and niccte person,"
Newos out of Cliosliire, IGOO. " To Mr. Harris for his trouhle aljout selHng yom^
worship's icatl- in the Ibrrest, per order, 1. 1. G," ]MS. Accounts, dated 1088.
Norden, as above quoted, after giving an alphabetical table of the ])laces
marked on the ]\lap, says, — "Other places of note and name there arc within
everie walke, no doubte, wherof, either of meere ignorance, or wilfull negligence,
the keepers coulde not informe more than in this table is observed. There is
contention betwene everie neighbor keeper, for the nioste parte, for usurpation and
intruding one into anothers Avalkes, for not one of them trulie knoweth his owne
boundcs ; which controversies will hardliebe justlie determined, untill the verderers
of the Eoreste, and the regardcrs of everie walke, ayded by the anticnt inhabitants,
doe perambulate, view, and order the same." — Notes to his Plans, 1G07.
" To the keeper the shoulders and humhles belong as a perquisite," Orey. So,
in Eriar Bacon, and Eriar Eungay, 1599 :
Butter and cheese, and humhles of a deer.
Such as poor keepers have within their lodge.
Again, in Holinslied, 158G, vol. i. p. 20i : " Tlie keeper, by a custom hath
the skin, head, umbles, chine and shoidders.'' — Steeceiis.
~° Fairies hlacJc, grey, green, and white.
The prefixes to this and other speeches spoken by the Eairy Queen are in the
quarto and folio, Qaic, Qui, and Qii, supposed by Mr. Harness to be an error, in
all cases, for Qii, meaning Queen. The words certainly are not in keeping with
Mrs. Quickly 's ordinary conversation, but it may be presumed they were supposed
to have been learned by rote, and it is to be observed that none of these fairy
speeches are in character. The stage-direction in the quarto distinctly states that
Mrs. Quickly was to be attired like the Queen of Eairies ; but as Anne Page, in
the perfect play, is to be the sovereign of the mimic band, Mr. Harness's correction
may probably be accepted.
You orphan heirs of fixed destiny.
AYarburton proposes ouphen heirs, and Heath, harhingers. The original text
is no doubt correct, though the line is, perhaps, one of the most obscure to be
found in any of the plays. More than one explanation may be given : — You,
who are heirs, or children inheriting the powers, of Fate, created preternaturally,
and therefore without parents. Or, if there be an allusion to changelings, — you,
who are separated entirely from your parents, and are become the children of Eate.
Or, you who are children of fixed destiny, of Eate's unchangeable decree, born
without parents. The last interpretation is likely to be correct.
" But why orphan-heirs? Destiny, whom they succeeded, was yet in being.
Doubtless the poet wrote : — ' You ouphen heirs of fixed destiny,' i. e. you elves,
who minister and succeed in some of the works of destiny. They are called in
this play, both before and afterwards, ouphes; here ouphen; en being the plural
termination of Saxon nouns; for the word is from the Saxon Alfenne, lamia,
dcemones. Or it may be understood to be an adjective, as wooden, icoollen, golden,
&c." — Warhurton.
" Dr. AYarburton corrects orphan to ovpjhen; and not without plausibility, as the
word ouphes occurs both before and afterwards. But, I fancy, in acquiescence to
the vulgar doctrine, the address in this line is to a part of the troop, as mortals by
birth, but adopted by the fairies : orphans in respect of their real parents, and now
only dependent on destiny herself. A few lines from Spenser will sufficiently
illustrate this passage :
NOTES TO THE EIETII ACT.
459
" The man whom heavens have ordaynd to bee
The spouse of Britomart is ArthegalL
He wonneth in the land of Fayeree,
Yet is no Fary borne, ne sib at all
To elfes, but sprong of seed terrestriall,
And whilome by false Faries stolen away,
Whiles yet in infant cradle he did crall," &c. — Farmer.
" Dr. Warburton objects to their being heirs to Destiny, who was still in
being. But Shakespeare, I believe, uses heirs, with his usual laxity, for children.
So, to inherit is used in the sense of to possess." — Malone.
Attend your office, and your qtiality.
Attend, attend to. "Attend my doctrine, then," Scot's Philomythie, IGIG.
~^ Mahe the fairy o-yes.
" These two lines were certainly intended to rhyme together, as the preceding
and subsequent couplets do; and accordingly, in the old editions, the final words
of each line are printed, Oyes and toyesT — Tyrwhitt.
^ Where fires thou find' st unraFd.
" That is, unmade up, by covering them with fuel, so that they may be found
alight in the moruing. This phrase is still current in several of our midland
counties. So, in Chapman's version of the sixteenth book of Homer's Odyssey:
' — stiU raJce up all thy fire in fair cool words.' " — Steevens.
As hlue as hilherry.
" Whortle berries are called in England, whortes, whortle berries, blacke-
berries, bill-])erries, and, bull-berries, and in some places, winberries," Gerard's
Herball, 1231. " AVhat hilherries are, whether hke a black cherry, or not, as I
heard some affirme," Ward's MS. Diary, 1662. It is scarcely necessary to
observe that fairies ever had an objection to sluttery. See most of the old fairy
^allads.
He that speaks to them, shall die.
The notion of death being the punishment of speaking to fairies is alluded to
in the English translation of Huon of Bourdeaux, 4to. 1601. ch. 21.
Where's Fead?
Evans's pronunciation of Bead; but his peculiar Welch speech is dropped almost
entirely in these fairy speeches, though the accent in which he spoke must be
supposed to have been sufficient for Ealstaff to detect the speaker's country. Two
fairies, Pean and Bead, for Bean and Bead, are mentioned by Sir Hugh in the
quarto edition.
liaise tip the organs of her fantasy.
Raise up, rouse or stir up. " They shall not awake, nor be raised out of their
sleep," Job, xiv. 12. The meaning of the speech in the text is this, — Go you,
and wherever you find a maid who has attended to her devotions before she
retired to sleep, stir up the organs of her imagination (cause her to dream
deliciously), and let her sleep as soundly as an infant: but as to those who have
gone to rest without remembering to beg pardon for their sins, pinch them, &c.
Malone would read the next line as if it meaut, though she sleep, kc, but the
construction is explained more naturally as referring to the fairy who is addressed.
Warburton suggests to read rein up, which is certainly unnecessary.
460
NOTES TO THE FIETII ACT.
But those as sleep.
" But those that sleep," ed. 1G85. This is merely a modernization of the
ancient phraseology.
Strew good lucJc, ouphes, on every sacred room.
Oiiphes, elves. Compare Chaucer's Milleres Tale, 3482, &c.
In state as wholesome.
"JFliolesome here signifies integer. He wishes the castle may stand in
its present state of perfection, which the following words plainly show : — ' as in
state 'tis fit.' " — JFarburton.
Worthif the oicner, and the owner it.
She desires the castle may stand till the end of time, worthy of the royal
owner, and the owner worthy of it. Dr. Warburton proposes to read, — as the
owner it.
LooJc you scour with juice of halm.
" It was an article of our ancient luxury, to rub tables, &c. with aromatic
herbs. Thus, in the Story of Baucis and Philemon, Ovid. Met. viii. : — ' mensam —
sequatam Mentha abstersere virenti.' Pliny informs us that the Bomans did the
same, to drive away evil spirits." — Steevens.
^* And, Honi soil qui mat y pense, write.
" Shakespeare understood French well enough to have known that in reading
verse, the e final, occasionally, by poetic license, makes a syllable which is lost in
prose ; and I suspect that this little vindicating circumstance was unknown to the
objector, who reads y-icrite. The letter e in pense being followed by the letter r
in the word write, would, in the most correct French reading, be slightly sounded
as a distinct syllable, coalescing with the liquid letter r, for the w is totally lost,"
Sherwen's MSS.
In emerald tuffs.
Tiffs, the old and authentic form of tufts. Florio translates affioccdre, " to
betassle, to tuffe, or hang with locks."
^® Flowers purple, blue, and ichite.
Warburton would read purfled for purple, and, in the next line, in rich;
surely, in both cases, unnecessarily.
Fairies use flowers for their charactery.
For the matter with which they make letters. — Johnson.
I smell a man of middle-earth.
Middle-earth, an old English term for the world (A. S. middan-eard), but
nearly obsolete in Shakespeare's time. It is found in the Coventry Mysteries,
p. 30, — " Tyl a maydon in medyl-erth be borne." A man of middle-earth is,
therefore, merely a mortal. The term is probably derived from the ancient
opinion that the earth stood in the centre of the universe. " Now is non mysprowd
squier in al this mydil-jerd," Poem on the Times of Edward II,, p. 21*. " God
that madest man, and all middel-erthe," William and the Werwolf. " The
fepest orchard that was yn aUe thys myddyll-erd," MS. Cantab. Ff. ii. 38,
fol. 129. "More he is then any mon upon myddelerde," Syr Gawayn and the
Grene Kny5t. "And yett I shall make thee as feard, as ever was man in
middlearth," Turke and Gowin. "And win the fayrest mayde of middle erde,"
Guy of Warwick. "Adam, for pride, lost his price in mydell erth," Gower. The
NOTES TO THE EIETH ACT.
461
term seems to be used in a more literal sense by Heywood, "the middle-earth-sea
that parts Europe from Africa" being mentioned in a marginal note to the Troia
Britanica, 1609. Euddiman, in his glossary to Gawin Douglas's translation of
the ^neid, quoted by Steevens, aifords the following illustration of this contested
phrase : " It is yet in use in the North of Scotland among old people, by whicli
we understand this earth in which we live, in opposition to the grave: Thus they
say, There's no man in midle erd is able to do it, i. e. 710 man alive or on this
earth."
Thou wast 0' erlooF d.
That is, overlooked by a witch. The term is still in use in the sense of
bewitched in the West of England. " To be overlook'd, to be bewitched
or blasted by some hag," Palmer's Devonshire Glossary, p. 69. So the old
proverb, — the devil looks over Lincoln.
What disease hath she tane ? — Cal. You need not marvell at this, for I
believe some envious eye hath overloolcd her. — Goiigh's Strange Discovery , 1610.
*° And turn him to no pain.
" The teen that I have turned you to," Tempest. "AU the trouble thou hast
timid me to," Henry VI.
In this flame his finger thrust,
Which will burn him, if he lust ;
But if not, away will turn.
As loth unspotted flesh to burn. — Faithful Shepherdess.
Still pinch him to your time.
Theobald here inserts a line from the quarto — " it is right, &c." — which is
certainly not at all in keeping with the rest. Compare this line, and others, with
passages in the Eaithful Shepherdess.
Fie on sinful fantasy!
It is barely possible that the author had in his recollection Lamilia's song, —
"Ey, fy on blind Eancy" — in Greene's Groatsworth of Wit, published first in 1592.
See CoUier's ed. of Shakespeare, i. 270.
Lust is hut a bloody fire.
"A bloody fire, means a fire in the blood. [Cf. Tempest, where that expression
occurs.] In the Second Part of Henry IV. act iv. the same expression occurs : —
' Led on by bloody youth,' &c. i. e. sanguine youth," Steevens. In Sonnets by
H. C. [Henry Constable], 1594, as Malone observes, there is the same image :
Lust is a fire, that for an hour or twain e
Giveth a scorching blaze, and then he dies ;
Love a continual furnace doth maintain e, &c.
^ Luring this song, the fairies pinch Falstaff.
This stage- direction is adapted from one in the quarto edition, nothing of the
kind being inserted in the folio. So, as Steevens observes, in Lilly's Endymion,
1591 : — " The fajT-ies daunce, and, with a song, pinch him ;" and, in his Maydes
Metamorphosis, 1600, they threaten the same punishment.
Dare you haunt our h allowed greene ?
None but fayries heere are scene.
Downe and sleepe.
Wake and weepe,
-102
KOTES TO THE EIETII ACT.
rincli liini blaclxc, aiul })iiicli liim hlew.
That scckes to slcalc a lover true.
AVlien you come to hear us sing,
Or to tread our fayrie ring,
Pinch hiiu blacke, and ])inch him Llcw,
0 thus our nayles shall haiulle you !
llavenscroffs BricJ'e Discourse, 4-to. Lond. 1G14'.
Do not these fair yohes.
]\rrs. Page is unquestionably here alluding to tlie liorns on Palstaff's head,
mIucIi may be supposed to have been fastened with a substantial bandage, passing
over the head, and tied beneath the chin, thus forming a resemblance to the yokes
of oxen ; or the high-standing extremities of the yohe may be alluded to. Are
not the yokes of liorns on his head much more suitable to the forest, than to the
town where our husbands reside? The second and later folios read, fair oaks;
and fair?/ oaks has also been suggested as the correct reading.
Uliich mitst he paid to master Ford.
So the quarto, as noticed by Malone, and, I think, rightly, as it avoids ambi-
guity. One editor reads, — paid too, master Brook.
*^ But I icill always count you my deer.
A similar play upon words occurs in Taylor's Workes, fol. 1630, — "A deere
friend (whom I love deere) did promise mee a deere foure yeeres since, and foure
deere journeyes I made for my deere, and still with delayes and demurres I was put
off from my deere, Mith promises that at such and such a time I should have my
deere, but now I am in despaire of my deere, and I meane to take no more care
for my deere ; And so adue, my deere ; but, indeed, hee that had the bounty to
promise me this deere, hath the grace to blush whensoever he sees me, and
therefore I doe love him for his modesty and shamefastnesse, and had it not beene
for that, and that I doe love him indeed, I would long before this time have sung
him a Kerry-Elison, that should have made him beene glad to have promist me
a brace of bucks more, to have stop'd my mouth witliall, although in performance
my deere had beene 7ion est inventus T
See now, Iwto wit may he made a Jack-a-Lent.
A Jack-a-Lent was a stuffed puppet, or almost any oddity, thrown at by the
the boys in Lent. The term is often used in contempt or playfulness, for a
scarecrow, a diminutive or thin person, &c. See previously at p. 380. " Then
Jake a Lent comes justlynge in, with the hedpeece of a herynge," early ballad.
This is in allusion to the composition of a Jack o' Lent, which frequently merely
consisted of a red herring and an onion. Originally, Jack o' Lent was a character
in some Lenten game or pageant, as appears from an exceedingly curious notice in
INIachyn's Diary of a London entertainment in the year 1553, — " and then cam
the dullo and a sawden, and then a priest shrcyffyng Jake-of-Lent on horss-bake,
and a doctor ys fezyssyoun, and then Jake-of-lent's wyff bro^vght him ys fessy-
ssyons, and bad save ys lyff', and he shuld give him a thousand li. for ys labur."
" When that to the wakes he went, He was drest up like Jack a Lent," Church-
yard's Chippes, 1578. ''Que voulez vous tuer quareuieanx? , what, will you kill
Jacke-a-Lent," Eliot's Fruits for the French, ] 593. " He is such another pretie
Jacke a Lent, as boyes throw at in the streete," Nash's Have with you to Saffron
AValden, 1596. "A mere anatomy, a Jack of Lent," AVeakest goes to the Wall,
1600 ; Avhich is repeated, in nearly the same words, in How a Man may chuse a
Good Wife from a Bad, p. 39, repr. "And ever, upon Easter-day, All Jack-a-
NOTES TO THE FIFTH xiCT.
403
Lents were cast away," Friar Bacon's Propliesie, IGOk " How small i' the wast,
how sparmj^ in the borabe, what Jacke a Lents they are," Strappado for the Divcil,
1615. " Now you old Jack of Lent, six weeks and upwards," Four Prentices of
London, 1615. "A boy throwing at his Jack o' Lent," Greene's Tu Quoque.
"Call me a Jack a de Lent !," Shirley's Ball, p. 39. " The Jacke of Jackes,
great Jacke a Lent," Taylor, 1630. " If 1 forfeit, make me a Jacke o' Lent, and
break ray shins for untagg'd points and counters," Tamer Tamed. " Thin-chapt
Jack-a-Lent," Lambeth Faire, 1641. "How like a Jack a Lent he stands, for
boys to spend their Sbrove-tide throws," Quarles' Shepherd's Oracles, 1646.
" Finding me in such a Jack of Lent like posture," Comical History of Francion,
1655. " Throwing cudgels at Jack-a-Lents or Shrove-cocks," Lady Alimony,
4to. 1659. " Thou shalt make Jack of Lents and babies first," Cleaveland llevived,
1660 ; Works, ed. 1687, p. 339. " No Jack-a-Lent danc'd such a way," Wit at
a Venture, or Clio's Privy Garden, 1674. " I am not to be perswaded to lye still,
like a Jack a-Lent, to be cast at," Sir B. Howard's Committee. " That sceliton
bufPoon, that ape of man, that Jack of Lout, that very top," Emperor of the Moon,
1687, p. 51. " 1 take you for a Jack-a-Lent, and my pen shall make use of you.
accordingly, three throws for a penny," Cleaveland's AV'orks, 1687. " To make
yourselves a very scorn, your king but Jack-a-Lent," Nedham's Bebellion.
Scarecrows for birds are termed Jack-a-Lents in the prologue to the Old Mode
and the New, 1709.
Thou cam'st but halfe a thing into the world.
And wast made up of patches, parings, shreds :
Thou, that when last thou wert put out of service,
Travaild'st to Hamsted Heath on an Ash-we'nsday,
AV'here thou didst stand sixe weekes the Jack of Lent,
For boyes to hoorle, three tlirowes a penny, at thee.
To make thee a purse : Seest thou this bold bright blade ?
Ben Jonsons Tale of a Tab, fol. ed.
Te little vig and te grand mustach, be var fine tings for te Spanish commodity.
Begar, var me in London in tis garb on St. Taffies day, me should be hang on te
signe-post for te Jack-a-Leiit. — The French Conjurer, 1678.
Shall I hace a coxcomb of frize?
That is, a fool's cap made out of Welch materials. In other words, shall a
Welchman make a fool of me ? Wales was famous for this cloth. So, in King
Edward L, 1599: "Enter Lluellin, alias Prince of Wales, &c. with swords and
bucklers, and frieze jerkins." Again : " Enter Sussex, &c. with a mantle of frieze.
— my boy shall weare a mantle of this country's weaving, to keep him warm." —
Steevens. Is it possible that frize, in this speech, is intended to rhyme with cheese/
The taunt of one that makes fritters of English.
Peat, peat, peat ! What a plague can any one above the degree of a kitchin,
love a fellow that makes fritters of English, as Falstalfe says ? A Welch beau
with ahead as barren as the mountains in his own country. Ha, ha, ha, I'll ne'er
believe it; I'm resolv'd to abuse these puppeys for dear Frederick's sake, whom I
know they hate. — D'Urfeys Richmond Heiress, or a T/'oman once in the Big /it,
4to. Lond. 1693.
What, a hodge-pudding ?
I have not met with this term elsewhere. Is it connected with hog-pudding,
or haggas-pudding, or is it another form of hodge-podge? Most probably the
latter, podge being an old word for pudding or porridge.
464
NOTES TO THE EIETH ACT.
I am dejected.
Dejected, tlnwn doAvn, beaten. Tlie word is not here used in the modern
sense. So, in Taylor's AVorkcs, fol. 1030, —
And from the time it was at first erected,
Till by the Eomanes it was last dejected.
It stood (as it in liistories appeares)
Twenty one hundred, seventy and nine yeeres.
I am not able to answer the Welsh flatinel.
" The very word is derived from a Welch one, so that it is almost unnecessary
to add that Jlanncl was originally the manufacture of Wales. In the old play of
K. Edward I., 1599: 'Enter Hugh ap David, Guenthian his wench in JIannel,
and Jack his novice.' Again : ' Here's a wholesome Welch wench, lapt in her
JIannel, as warm as wool.' " — Steevens.
^* Ignorance itself is a plummet o'er me.
That is, even ignorance is a weight or plummet over me, which I cannot
shake off ; or, the sounding-lead or plumb-line, when let down into the water, will
be found higher than I am. Either interpretation makes sense ; but I think
the first is what was intended. Any lump of lead was formerly termed a
plummet, as well as a plumb-line. Johnson proposes to read, — ignorance itself
has a plume 6' me; and Earmer would read planet in the place of plummet.
" The use of a plummet is to correct errors. Ealstaff complains that ignorance
itself is a plummet over him, and capable of correcting and discovering his faults.
This is offered with some confidence, on the supposition that the allusion is to the
plummet of the bricklayer ; but if to the mariner's plummet, then the meaning-
will be, — Ignorance itself is capable of sounding my depth," MS. Com.
To repay that money will he a biting affliction.
Tlieobald here introduces two short and poor speeches from the quarto, in
which Eord forgives the debt at the intercession of his wife. The insertion seems
not only to be inconsistent with Page's remark, — yet be cheerful — but to be no
improvement of the spirit of the scene.
Would I were hanged, la, else.
''Q. Do you spend your time better? — A. Or 'tis pity but I w^ere hang'd," —
Country Earmer's Catechism, 1703.
^'^ I went to her in white.
" The old copy, by the inadvertence of either the author or transcriber, reads —
in green; and in the two subsequent speeches of Mrs. Page, instead of green we
find white. The corrections, which are fuUy justified by what has preceded, were
made by Pope." — Malone.
0, I am vexed at heart.
This speech is taken from the quarto, and seems necessar}" to the full meaning
of the following one. A previous speech by Evans is also inserted by some editors
from the same source.
°^ Of disobedience, or unduteous title.
" Eor title we are asked to read guile. The iteration of deceit and craft is
enough, without a third word of identically the same sense. Unduteous title sums
up all specially, implying that, in the circumstances, the deceit lost wholly the title
of unduteousness." — Mr. Smibert.
NOTES TO THE EIETH ACT.
405
Well, what remedy ?
Dr. Johnson here speaks in commendation of a dialogue in the quarto edition,
beginning-, " Come, Mistress Page, I 'll be bold with you." See p. 234.
What cannot he escheicd must he emhracd.
" This is either a proverbial saying now lost, or borrowed from one of the
following, What cannot be altered must be borne not blamed ; AVhat cannot be
cured must be endured," Douce. The latter is found in Horace.
All sorts of deer are chas'd.
"Young and old, does as well as bucks: he alludes to Eenton's having just
run doim Anne Page," Malone. A line spoken by Evans, — I will dance &c.
(p. 234) — is here generally inserted from the quarto ; but the dialogue being-
there differently constructed, the addition of the speech is of doubtful propriety.
^"^ And laugh this sport o'er hy a country fire.
So when our Don at his long home is anchor'd,
His memory in a Manchegan tankard :
By the old wives will be kept up, that's all,
Counted the merriest, tosseth up the same.
(John Ealstaffs Windsor Dames memoriall)
A goddard or an anniversary spice-bowle,
Drank off by th' gossips, e'r you can have thrice told.
Gay tori s Festivotis Notes on the History of Bon Quixot, 1054.
A prologue and epilogue to the Merry Wives of Windsor, " acted by the
young gentlemen of Bury School, 1723," are printed in Pack's New Collection of
Miscellanies in Prose and Verse, 8vo. Lond. 1725. They are not worth a
quotation.
Tlie principal various readings in the early editions of this play are mentioned
in the notes ; but the greater portion of the variations in the later folios are
exceedingly trifling, and for the most part clearly erroneous ; while the readings of
the various annotated copies, and of the MS. of the Merry Wives of Old Windsor,
are of no perceptible value. The only real authority for the text of the present
comedy, is the copy contained in the first folio. On the supposition, however, that
the early quarto edition, instead of being an author's sketch, is a surreptitious copy
of the acting play, this may also be referred to for the formation of the text,
though necessarily with great caution.
IT.
59
/
The Merry Wives of Windsor is not only to be considered as
a comedy which reflects the manners and language of the
Elizabethan era, and to be dissociated entirely from the period
suggested by the few historical names which are mentioned in
it ; but it is to be regarded, in all essential particulars, as a purely
English local drama, in which the actors and incidents, thoagli
spiritually belonging to all time, are really founded and engrafted
upon living characters, amidst scenes existing, in a provincial
town of England and its neighbourhood, in the life-time of the
poet. This being the case, it is excusable for Englishmen,
especially for those who are acquainted with Windsor, to disre-
gard for a time the universality which undoubtedly belongs to
all the dramatic works of Shakespeare, and to dwell with interest
and pleasure on the material scenes he has embodied in the
present comedy. It is something, in the nineteenth century, to
be enabled to traverse Windsor, and to indicate, not with the
fancy of romance but with the finger of certain truth, most of
the localities that are mentioned by the great dramatist.
One of the first objects that meet the sight upon entering
Windsor from the terminus of the Great Western Railwav, is
the sign of an inn, the Star and Garter. Whether this house of
entertainment was existing in any form, in Shakespeare's time,
may be uncertain ; but it is curious that it should stand in the
immediate locality of the ancient Garter Inn, the back-Avindows
of the present White Hart, which adjoined the latter, now looking
upon the modern Star and Garter Inn, which may possibly have
derived its name from the older hostelry, when the latter was
pulled down in the seventeenth century. The exact locality of
the old Garter Inn has been satisfactorily ascertained by J. E.
168
LOCAL ILLUSTllATIONS.
Davis, Esq., of the Oxford Circuit, to whom I am iiulchtcd for
the following very curious and im])ortant extracts on the suhject,
which prove heyond a douht that the inn mentioned hy
Shakesj)eare adjoined the AVhite Hart Hotel in High Street,
nearlv faciu"* the Castle Hill. "On referring;," ohserves Mr.
Davis, "to Norden's bird's-eye view of the castle, made in 1607,
WINDSOR IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY, FROM A PAINTING AT GREENWICH HOSPITAL.
it will be seen that two inns are represented by the sign-posts
and cross-beams in the precise position that we should expect to
find them from the following entries : it is clear that they denote
the Garter and AVhite Hart Inns, and that the former is the
identical house known to Shakespeare : the Garter was that
nearest Peascod Street, and the furthest from the spectator looking
at Norden's view : it had a massive porch, and was probably one
of those Elizabethan structures of which there is scarcely a trace
now remainino; in Windsor." The folio win o* are the extracts
above alluded to : —
In a table or schedule of the rents, &c., belonging to the Corporation of
AYindsor, paid out of the lands and tenements in the said borough, dated 1561,
the following entries occur, — "Et de Eicardo Galys pro uno mess : sive hospic :
Tocat : le Garter, j. s.; et pro le sygne et stulpis ibidem, ij. d.'' — Ashraolean MSS.
1126. — "Paid for wyne and beere with Dr. Tucker at the Garter twyce, 5^.,"
Churchwardens' Accounts, 1633. " Paid for a breakfast for Doctor Tucker at
the Garter, Mr. Maior and others of the company beinge there about busines con-
cerninge the Church, 0. 10. 0," ibid. 1636. — "Paid for 12 quarts of Renish wyne
and a sugar loafe given to the Lord Maior of London, and paid at the Garter,
1. 3. 0 : Paid for 12 bottells of sacke and 12 bottells of Penish wyne, and a sugar
loafe waying 6 pound, given to Sir Pic : Praham, 2. 6. 0," Chamberlains'
Accounts, 1662-1663. " Paid at the Garter upon Mr. Mavor's return from
London, 00. 08. 00," ibid. 1674. "Of Mrs. Starkey one half year's rent for
three tenements over against the old Garter, 001. 06. 00 : of Mr. Isaac Clerke
two vears and a halfe rent for the White Hart Inn, 002. 10. 00 : of Mr. Isaac
LOCAL ILLUSTRATIONS.
469
Clerk the fine of his lease for those tvm houses tohere the old Garter Inn stood,
the summe of two pounds, and one year's rent for the said houses, one pound, in
all, 003. 00. 00," ibid. 1687-1688: "of Mr. Isaac Clark one year's rent for the
AYhite Hart Inn, and likewise one year's rent for those 2 houses where the old
Garter stood, 002. 00. 00," ibid. 1688-9, thus divided in the next year's accounts,
— "Clarke (Isaac) for the front of the White Harte, 01. 00. 00; more for the
ffront of the two next houses, anciently the Garter Inne, 01. 00. 00."
If the reader will refer to Norden's plan of Windsor and the
Little Park, as they existed in 1607, he will observe that in the
road proceeding upwards from the bridge towards the Town-hall,
before the second turning on the right is reached, there are two
large inns nearly opposite the Castle, the second of which, that
which is furthest from the bridge and nearest Peascod Street (the
second turning on the right), is the Garter Inn. In the annexed
engraving, which is taken from the bird's-eye view of Windsor
by Norden, and is larger in its proportions than the other plan,
WINDSOR IN 1307, SHOWING THE SITUATION Ol'' THE GAllTlill INN.
the Garter Inn is more clearly exhibited ; Ford's house, or rather
that which is traditionally so called, being the detached house on
the opposite side of the \vay between the two inns. In the
woodcut, the street in the upper right hand corner is Peascod
Street, and parts of the Town-hall and Castle walls are shown, as
well as a portion of the Castle ditch. It appears, from the extracts
given above, that Richard Gallis was the Host of the Garter in
1 56 1; very slender ground, indeed, for conjecturing that the Host
introduced by Shakespeare was alluding in jest to his own siu'-
name, in the well-known speech, addressing a Frenchman and
Welcliman, commencing, — "Peace, I say! Gallia and Guallia."
There is a very curious tradition in AYindsor, lor the
knowledge of which I am indebted to jMr. Davis, to the effect
Jt70
LOCAL ILLUSTRATIONS.
that Ford's lionsc was situated in Thames Street, in the row of
honses which the reader will ohserve in Nordcn's view and plan
as hein<i: on the Castle side, opposite the Garter Inn. "This
tradition,*' ohserves Mr. Davis, "is given on the anthority of
IMr. Snowdon, one of the most respected inhahitants of Windsor;
and I attach greater weight to it, heeause Mr. Snowdon cor-
rectly pointed out the precise situation of the Garter Inn, long
before there was an opportunity of verifying his statement by
more satisfactory evidence." The particular house is said to
have been opposite to the
White Hart Inn, on the
spot where, before the re-
moval of the clump of
honses near the Castle, was
a chemist's shop occupied
by a Mr. Woolridge. It is
worthy of remark that there
was a family of the name of
Ford resident at Windsor in
the reign of Elizabeth, se-
veral notices of the name oc-
curing in the ancient parish
register of that town, e. g.,
William Fourde, christened
in 1574-5; Edward Fowrde,
buried in 1576 ; Margarett
Forde, christened in 1577-8;
Elizabeth Forde, christened
in 1580; K. Forde, buried in
1581; WiUiam Forde, buried in 1582-3 ; John Fourde, christened
in 1595; Elizabeth Forde, christened and buried in 1597-8; Mar-
garett Forde, christened in 1598-9; Ilenrye Forde, christened in
1600; and William Foord, married in 1606-7. The name also
occurs at later periods; and the same register likewise con-
tains notices of a family of the name of Page, one Thomas Page
being mentioned as early as 1563. Mr. Davis informs me there
is a note respecting one Richard Page, and another regarding
Anne Ford, in the Churchwardens' accounts for the year 1623.
The name of Page was also known in the neighbourhood of
Windsor, the above engraving being a reduced copy of the
effigy of Cicely Page, taken by Mr. Fairholt from the original
in the church of Bray, co. Bucks. Cicely Page died in the
MONUMENTAL EFFIGY OF CICELY PAGE.
LOCAL ILLUSTRATIONS.
471
year 1598, so that, on the supposition that the Merry Wives is
to be treated as an Ehzabethan comedy, she may be considered
in figure and costume a true prototype of sweet Anne. At the
same time, it is to be observed that Page and Ford were very
common names at that period in many parts of England. There
was a John Ford buried at Brentford in 1593. Joan, the wife
of John Page, was buried at Stratford-on-Avon in January,
1583-4; and the register of the same town exhibits the burial of
Johanna filia Roberti Foord in March, 1562-3, and of Johanna
filia Guy Ford in August, 1599. Dr. Johnson was descended,
on his mother's side, from one branch of the Warwickshire
family of Ford.
The Windsor register, however, presents other notices of
names that add to the probability of Shakespeare having been
will acquainted Avith the inhabitants of the town. Several
persons of the name of Evans are mentioned. There was a
Gryffyn Evans buried in 1564-5; Mathewe Evens christened in
1589-90; Jone Evans, married in 1590; Alice Evans, buried in
1591; Joane Evans, christened in 1591-2; and Edwarde Evans,
christened in 1597-8. Richard Broke is mentioned in 1561, and
J. Broke was buried in 1585. Gylles Hyrne was married at
Windsor in 1569. There is no
notice of Yead or Edward Miller, ^
but mention is made several times Q}^^^ 5^^^^ ft
of a family of that name. Thus n a v ^/i
Roberte Miller was married in "2^''^*^^^
1588-9; Thomas Miller, chris-
tened in 1590-1 ; Annys Miller,
bm'ied in 1593; and Richard Miller, buried in 1596-7. It is also
curious to notice that there was a Joan Hathaway, the name spelt
Jone Ilatheway, married at Windsor in 1573; but there is no
further evidence, from which the branch to which she belonged can
be ascertained. The registers offer little else of interest to the
Shaksperian enquirer. There is the name of Kenton, but not of
Fenton, which it may be well to notice, the former having been
misread ; and there is the name of Shorthose, a somewhat near
approach to that of Shortcake. The Shaksperian names abso-
lutely mentioned are. Page, Ford, Evans, Herne, Brook, and
Miller; six in all, but only one of them which is of very unusual
occurrence. That so many, however, should be found amongst
the residents of W indsor, in tlie time of Shakespeare, is, at least,
a remarkable and curious circumstance, even if no certain or
472
LOCAL ILLUSTllATIONS.
wide conclusion be extracted from it. Tlie reader must not
{'oriict that the nuire tamiHar records of the town have perished,
and that a barren reg*ister is the only som'ce at present accessible
for obtainin<»; any information on the subject. Private diaries
of the ])eriod, should any exist, would probably furnish particulars
of a more decisive character.
jMr. and jMrs. Viv^c are said, according to tradition, to have
resided at some distance from the Fords. The papers of an
inhabitant of AYindsor, now deceased, but on the authenticity of
which I have every reason to rely, state that, " the street which
leads to Datchet ^lead is still called Datchet Lane, by which
you can pass all round to Frogmore: a short distance down this
lane, opposite a public-house called the Royal Oak, was a corner
very old house, wdiieh was always said to be Mrs. Page's." A
statement of this kind must necessarily be taken with some
degree of caution; but it enables us to assert that the old
traditions of Windsor indicated the locality of the houses of
Page and Ford, as well as that of Heme's Oak, and they are
thus far of importance as adding, in the aggregate, no in-
considerable w eight to the opinion that the play is formed on
circumstances of a local character.
AYitli respect to the other names intioduced into the comedy,
the probability is that some, at least, were suggested without
reference to AA'indsor. Jack Rugby's appellation may have been
derived from the well-known town in the author's own county.
Simple was a generic name for a fool, as Jack Simple in Mill's
Xight Search, 1640. A short-cake is, to this day in the pro-
vinces, a rich sweet cake that breaks short, and is a common
fairing present. That Brook should be the assumed name of
Ford, is too obvious to require a remark, a brook being frequently,
though perhaps erroneously, termed a ford. At all events, the
reason for this metastasis of the name is clearly no object for
antiquarian research; albeit there was, as ^Ir. Davis informs me,
a Mr. Brook of Windsor in Shakespeare's time, who was one of
the yeomen of the o-uard, and who died in the year 1593.
There was also another ]Mr. Brook, as previously noticed. Why
the folio should read Broome is rather a mystery, notwithstanding
an instance of the rhyme agreeing with that substitution. Could
the poet have been thinking of the "beggarly Broom," immor-
talized in the verses attributed to an early effort of his muse ?
The Perkins MS. notes, which are, at the best, of doubtful
antiquity, suggest that Bourn, another name for a brook, was
LOCAL ILLUSTRATIONS.
473
Ford's assumed appellation. It is scarcely necessary to remark
that this was likewise a surname in real use. There was a John
Bourne living at Brentford in the time of Shakespeare, his burial
being recorded in the register for the year 1614.
The reader's attention may now be directed to another subject
that is usually, and justly so, considered the most curious question
of all connected with the local character of the play — whether
the legend of Heme the hunter be an invention of the poet, or
whether it is adapted from a tale anciently current at Windsor.
That the latter opinion is the true one may be gathered not
merely from the suggestive circumstance of some of the other
names and localities being real, but from the hitherto unnoticed
fact that there was a family of the name of Herne, or, as it is spelt
with the usual license of the period, Hyrne, living at Whidsor in
the sixteenth century; the proof of this existing in an indisputably
authentic record, the marriage of Gylles Hyrne toAliccLaythwaye
being recorded in the ancient parish register of Windsor under
the year 1569, a fac-simile of the entry having been previously
given. Shakespeare's own account, which in all probabiHty
embodied the legend as it was related in his own time, is that
Herne the hunter was formerly a keeper in Windsor Forest, and
that his spirit haunted an oak at midnight throughont the winter
months. This spirit or ghost was distinguished by "great ragg'd
horns," and by the hideous clanking of a chain ; and its evil
influence on the tree, and on the cattle, added to the terror of
the fable. The quarto edition, which is of little authority as to
this subject, says that Herne, or Horne, walked " in shape of a
great stagge." The old tradition of Windsor, recorded by the
elder Ireland in 1790, and published some time afterwards, was
that Herne, one of the keepers in the Park, having committed
an offence for which he feared he should be disgraced, hung him-
self upon an oak, which was ever afterwards haunted by his ghost.
Wliether this be the whole or a correct statement of the ancient
tale may, perhaps, admit of some doubt ; but there fortunately
exists satisfactory evidence of a date as early as the year 1742,
that the oak alluded to by Shakespeare was well known to the
inhabitants of the locality, its exact position being indicated in a
" Plan of the Town and Castle of Windsor, and Little Park,"
published by W. Collier at Fton in that year. In this extremely
interesting map, Sir John Falstaff's Oak (see the following
engraving of a j)ortion of the map) is represented as being on the
edge of a pit, Shakespeare's fairy-pit, just on the outside of an
4'7tfc LOCAL ILLUSTRATIONS.
avenue which was formed in the seventeenth ecntury, and known
as Queen Ehzaheth's Walk. A hand indicates the particular
tree, which, with the pit, will he ohserved in the map itself to
lie on the right hand side of the pathway which then led from
Windsor to Datehet. In Nor den's map of the Ijittle Park, this
avenue, not heing then in existence, of course does not appear,
hut Heme's oak would doubtlessly he one of the trees, or a tree,
not far from "the lodge." The tree stood, in fact, a short
distance from what is now Queen Adelaide's Cottage, on the
side furthest from Datehet. The foot-path from Datehet bridge
to Windsor was across the lower park, formerly called Datehet
Mead, over Dodd's Hill, the oak standing some distance from
the top of this hill behind the keeper's house. It may be worth
while to mention that, until the year 1815, the path from
Windsor to Datehet lay close to the Castle Walls, and between
the Castle and the Lodge inhabited by George the Third, and
led on in a North-East direction by Dodd's Hill. About the
year 1780, the oak is described as being twenty- seven feet in
circumference, hollow, and as the only tree in the neighbourhood
into which boys could contrive to get. It was a pollard, then
in a rapid state of decay, but acorns were obtained from it at
least as late as the year 1783. Its appearance in the year 1790
is delineated by Ireland, as in the following engraving, the
original print exhibiting Queen Elizabeth's Walk on the left,
another proof, if any w ere necessary, that the oak mentioned by
Shakespeare was outside the avenue. The other representation
of Heme's Oak, afterwards given, is copied from an original
sketch by Paul Snndljy in my own possession, and is taken from
a different point of view. This drawing may be considered not
LOCAL ILLUSTRATIONS.
475
merely the earliest, but by far the most authentie and interesting
yet engraved ; Sandby, it is well known, having been intimately
herne's oak, in the year 1790, FROM Ireland's engraving.
aequainted w ith Windsor loealities. The testimony afforded by
Collier's map appears to me to outweigh so greatly in importance
all later traditional opinions, it has not been thought necessary
to enter into the discussion as to whether the tree is now existing;
because, accepting that plan as genuine, and its authenticity
cannot fairly be questioned, the oak of Herne has undoubtedly
long since disappeared. The general opinion is that it was
accidentally destroyed in the year 1796, throvigh an order of
George III. to the bailiff Robinson that all the unsightly trees
in the vicinity of the Castle should be removed ; an opinion
confirmed by a well-established fact that a person named
Grantham, who contracted with the bailiff for the removal of
the trees, fell into disgrace with the King for having included
the oak in his gatherings. The tree in Windsor Park now shown
as Heme's Oak is absolutely in the avenue, and it is therefore
impossible that it is the genuine one. Mr. Jesse's statement
that the direction of the avenue was diverged, so as to include
the oak within it, is unsupported by any satisfactory evidence.
The present tree said to be Herne's Oak was, till the year 1789,
a flourishing and comparatively a young tree; but in or about that
year, it was struck by lightning, and shortly afterwards, by the
loss of a portion of its leaves and bark, it assumed its present
venerable appearance. The destroyed oak, which was twenty-
seven feet in girth in 1790, may well have been a large tree even
47G
LOCAL ILLUSTRATIONS.
in Shakespeare's time. The other, mcasvirhip; not much more than
the half of this circumference, could scarcely have existed as a
leg-endary tree in the sixteenth century. It may also be mentioned
that all the drawings of Heme's Oak, made before the present
century, agree in representing the same tree ; a circumstance
which proves that the traditional attribution of the locality long
continued to confirm the map published by Collier in 1742.
According to Pye (Comments, 1807, p. 14), there was "an old
saw-pit" near the original Heme's Oak. Shakespeare's knowledge
of Windsor and the Park was clearly so intimate and accurate,
HERNE's oak, from an original drawing by PAUL SANDBY.
and the play was evidently written by the author with so minute
an attention to locality, there is no critical impropriety in
recording even such a coincidence as this. The saw-pit, in which
Anne Page and the small fairies were concealed, was clearly
near the oak, not near the Castle ditch, as I stated in a former
work, an error obligingly pointed out to me by Mr. Davis. Page,
Shallow, and Slender, couch in the Castle ditch, till they observe
the light of the fairies, as they rise from the pit ; the literal
possibility of which is accounted for by the circumstance of the
ground from the Castle inclining in the direction of the oak.
The fairies, obserye Mrs. Page, " are all couched in a pit hard by
LOCAL ILLUSTRATIONS.
477
Heme's oak." Their original destination to the saw-pit is now
forgotten ; and they may be presumed to have selected for
themselves, the more obvious place of temporary concealment,
the pit which is so clearly to be traced in Collier's map. " A.n
oak which may be that alluded to by Shakespeare," says Steevens
in the year 1778, "is still standing close to a pit in Windsor
Forest ; it is yet shown as the oak of Herne." This pit was partly
filled up about the year 1790. Mr. Davis informs me that a
recent examination of the spot has resulted in the conclusion
that there was a chalk-pit at the locality indicated by Collier,
which was unquestionably one of the chalk-pits in the Little
Park that were in use in Shakespeare's time, satisfactory evidence
of the latter circumstance being contained in some MS. collec-
tions in the possession of the same writer.
It may be mentioned as a slight corroborative circumstance in
favour of the legend respecting Heme's Oak recorded by Ireland
being authentic, that there is a similar tale accounting for the
origin of the name of Dodd's Hill. Provincial le":ends not
unfrequently may be paired together. A certain Mrs. Dodd,
says the story, went from Datchet to Windsor Market to sell
her butter and eggs, but the former article being short in weight,
it was seized with her other goods by the clerk of the market,
and forfeited for the use of the poor. In consequence of this
misfortune, poor Mrs. Dodd hung herself on a tree on this hill,
henceforward called after her. It is somewhat singular that two
such legends should still be, or have lately been, familiar to
the inhabitants of the localitv.
The early quarto edition of this comedy, which is, as before
mentioned, of very questionable authority in respect to its notices
of Windsor localities, transforms the name of Herne into that of
Horne: — Oft have you heard since Hoytie the hunter died," &c.
This alteration of name may be regarded as curious, rather than
as being of any importance. It may be as well, liowever, to
mention that in a manuscript of the time of Henry the Eighth,
in the British Museum, MS. Bibl. Reg. 17 C. xvi, there occurs
" Rycharde Horne, yeoman," among "the names of the hunters
whiche be examyned, and have confessed," for hunting in his
majesty's forests. The name of Horne was also known at
Stratford-on-Avon, a William Horne being mentioned in a
deed, dated 1633, which is preserved in the Corporation archives
of that town.
A somewhat difficult question has been raised by ]Mr. Knight,
178
LOCAL ILLUSTRATIONS.
rcspectinji" tlie locality of the spot wlicrc Dr. Cains was directed
by the Host of the Garter to wait for lliiji^-li Evans. It is,
indeed, impossible to ascertain, from the few notices in tbe play
which bear npon this subject, the exact place intended by
Shakespeare; but it nuiy be concluded, with tolerable safety,
that Cains and lluoby took np their position in a field to the
North of Windsor Castle, near that bend in the river which
would be the furthest spot from Frogmore that could be reached
by them in that direction, without passing over the Thames.
Such a situation fulfils every condition implied by the transac-
tions mentioned in the comedy, and it may therefore be accepted
without much hesitation. The shortest way to Frogniore from
lience would be straight through the town of Windsor, while the
longest, which was evidently the road taken by the Host
"about by the fields," would probably be alongside the river,
and so by a country path up to Frogmore, near which, on the
side furthest from the Castle, Evans was waiting for the Doctor.
The Host tells Page that Sir Hugh was really at Frogmore
itself, but, as jMr. Davis observes, he must mean a field close by,
for Simple says, on the approach of Page, Shallow, and Slender,
— "there comes my master, master Shallow, and another gentle-
man, from Frogmore, over the stile, this way." The quarto
affords no assistance in this enquiry, the directions there given
to Evans respecting the method of going being the same to both
parties, one being "all over the fields to Frogmore," and the
other, " about by the fields." Mr. Davis has an interesting
theory which deserves notice. "The Fields," he observes, "by
which they were to arrive at Frogmore, seem to refer to fields
in the vicinity of Windsor, over which, about this time, the
inhabitants of Windsor exercised rights of common at certain
periods of the year : these common fields were familiarly known
as tJie fields, certain regulations respecting the depasturing of
cattle on them, dated lGlO-11, being entitled, Orders and Btj
Lawes concerniny the fieldesT The exact position of these
common fields has not been ascertained with any precision; and
I am rather disposed to believe that Shakespeare spoke generally
of the fields in the direction taken by the Host and Caius, as
above mentioned, and that he did not allude to any particular
locality. The conclusion arrived at by Mr. Davis is that the
contrary place appointed for the Doctor is "the Mill Common,
or at least somewhere on the North side of the Castle, and that
from there the Host of the Garter, instead of going through the
LOCAL ILLUSTRATIONS.
479
town, took liim along DatcLet Mead and the meadows lying
between the Little Park and the river, and so reached Frogniore
fields by almost as near a way as the road through the town
taken by Page, Shallow, and Slender." There cannot be a
doubt but that the locality was a field, or common ground, on
the North side of Windsor Castle.
Datchet-Lane, mentioned in the third act, is the road which
the reader will observe in Norden's plan as leading from
Windsor, commencing a little above the bridge, to Datehet
Ferry. This road passed North of the Castle, across the then
Mill Commons (the present Home Park) to the ferry, and
remained till the time of William III. " Datchet ^lead,"
observes Mr. Davis, "was the tract of land occupying the low
ground lying between Windsor Little Park and the river Tliames,
and consequently on the opposite side of the river to the village
of Datchet;" and the same writer informs me that there was, in
Shakespeare's time, a narrow creek or ditch, called Hog Hole,
situated in Datchet Mead close to the river side, about four
hundred yards above Datchet Ferry, — the "muddy ditch, close
by the Thames side." IMr. Davis also observes to me that it is
an error to conclude that Datchet Mead occupied the whole of
the flat ground lying under the North Terrace, for its limits
were really narrowed to the portion of the open ground which
was in the immediate vicinity of the ferry. The present
Datchet Bridge is situated very near the ditch into which the
buck-basket is supposed to have been emptied, but no vestige of
Hog Hole now remains. The very interesting plate of Datchet
IMead, which forms the frontispiece to this volume, is an exact
copy of a drawing in the Bodleian Library, most liberally com-
municated to me by Mr. Davis, and faithfully reproduced by
Mr. Fairholt. It is dated in 1686, and shows the mead on the
Windsor side, and the ferry, including of course the site of the
adventure of the buck-basket. The reader will observe in the
eno-ravins: that the shore on the Datchet side was evidently
" shelvy and shallow," and it was and is so m parts on the
other bank. Datchet Ferry is mentioned by Decker, 1609, as
a profitable source of income, in his Knight's Conjuring (repr.
p. 39); and the Windsor register notes that a number of persons
were "drowned at Datchett Ferry e" in 1594. The objection
mentioned by Dennis in 1702, that Falstaff would not have
suffered himself to be carried in the basket as far as Datchet
ISO
LOCAL ILLUSTRATIONS.
^load, (leserves little coiisulcratlon. The ditch would have hccn
reached hefore he had Avell recovered from his alarm.
The exact meaning implied hy Pitty-ward is scarcely worth
the discussion that has heen hestowed upon it. Pitfy^ or Peftj,
in the sense of little^ is of constant occurrence in the names of
old English localities; and may possibly be intended to be
a})plie(l to the Little Park. Old Windsor, at a considerable
distance from the Castle and Town of Windsor, the latter being
New Windsor, shoidd be carefully distinguished as a separate
locality. It is a small village situated on the banks of the
Thames, about two miles from New Windsor. Eton, on the
side of the Thames opposite Windsor,
scarcely requires a note; but it may
be well to observe the name is mis-
printed Catlen in the early quarto
edition. Another locality mentioned
is the Deanery, where a priest was
to attend for the purpose of marrying
Dr. Cains and Anne Page. The
annexed engraving representing the
" Deane's bowse" is taken from Nor-
den's bird's-eye view of Windsor
Castle, 1607, entitled, "an ample
and trew description of your Majes-
ties Castle of Windesor, the chap-
pelles, and of all other materiall
thinges thereof, as far as by a topo-
graphicall deliniation can be expressed," no scale being marked.
At the back of the Deanery, on the right, are the cloisters;
above is part of St. George's Chapel ; and the entry at to\) is
from the outer court of the Castle. The place where sweet /
Anne was really married was at the old church of Windsor, now/
pulled down. Its exact locality will be observed in Norden's
map, a little to the left of the Town Hall, directly opposite to
the pillory ; and tlie present parish church of Windsor is very
nearly on the same site, the Free School being at one corner of
the church-yard. In Kip's map of Windsor, which was pub-
lished early in the last century, a better delineation of the old
church, although then somewhat modernized, is given. There
is, however, sufficient similarity to show that it is a representation
of the same church which is seen in Norden. The accompanying
LOCAL ILLUSTUATIONS.
4S1
engraving is a copy of that portion of Kip's view which
includes the church; and tlie reader will observe that it
then retained many of its an-
cient characteristics. There
is very little now remaining
in the town of Windsor,
which can be considered to
belong to the Shakespearian
era; but the very interesting
engraving, at the commence-
ment of the present chapter,
exhibits an authentic repre-
sentation of a portion of the
town, as it existed towards
the close of the seventeenth
century, in which the
buildings evidently belong to
a much earlier period. This
view represents part of
Windsor, on the river, oppo-
site to Eton, and is taken from an original painting, preserved at
Greenwich Hospital, which was made in the year 1690. The
picture itself includes the Castle, and other objects; but the
reduced portion of it, here engraved, presents every feature
of any importance in connexion witli the present enquiry. It
may be considered to be the only satisfactory delineation of any
part of Shakespeare's Windsor yet discovered.
This account of the localities introduced into the forej^oino:
comedy, would scarcely be complete without a notice of Brent-
ford, a long straggling town, about ten miles from London, and
at a not much greater distance from Windsor. It still possesses
a few traces of its Elizabethan character, albeit its chief attraction
to the dramatic antiquary, a low^ building called the Three
Pigeons inn, has an exterior of modern date. This tavern
is mentioned by Ben Jonson and by Middleton, and appears to
have been a resort for rather wild characters. The first of the
jests of George Peele, 1627, relates a discreditable adventure that
took place at the Three Pigeons, in which that dramatist is
described as taking a principal share. The inn was kept after-
wards by the celebrated actor, John Lowin, who was one of the
early performers of the character of Ealstaff. Traces of its
antiquity may yet be discovered in the interior, in its dark
n. Gl
WINOSOR OLD CHURCH, C. 1/00.
482
LOCAL ILLUSTllATIONS.
closets and passag-cs, narrow stair-cases, a lonj^ projecting gallery,
and walls of enormous tiuckness; but it has long since lost all
its ancient in]})ortance, and may now be regarded as not much
superior to the commonest village hostelry. It is, however, of
interest, as being, in all likehhood, one of the few haunts of
Shakes})eare now remaining; as being, indeed, the sole Eliza-
bethan tavern existing in England, which, in the absence of
direct evidence, may fairly be presumed to have been occasion-
ally visited by him. That the great dramatist was well-
acquainted witli Brentford, and that " my maid's aunt," —
whose name, we are told by jMrs. Page, was IMother Prat — was
a veritable old woman, living and being in his own time, and a
personage excellently well-known by repute both at the Three
Pigeons and at Windsor, I regard as all but certain. Convinced,
indeed, of the prosaic truth, that Shakespeare, in this inimitable
comedy, adopted many of his names at least from contem-
poraries of his own country, I felt persuaded that the name of
Prat, by no means a common surname in the reign of Elizabeth,
was not one invented by the poet ; and a search in the ancient
register of Brentford has resulted in the discovery of an entry,
dated 1624, which is important as proving there was a family
of the Pratts established there early in the seventeenth century,
— " Rebecca Pratt, the daughter of Corneblis (?) and Rebecca
his wife, buried the 9th of November." The register, previously
to this date, is unfortunately very imperfect; but the above
notice is sufficient to indicate the probabihty that the name of
Shakespeare's witch is a genuine one, and that Mrs. Prat does,
in fact, belong to truth as well as to fiction.
Taken in the aggregate, the evidence here brought together
seems to lead irresistibly to the conclusion that the Merry Wives
of Windsor was originally a provincial comedy, constructed
with a reference to living characters, and, in some degree, to
events that really occurred during the life-time of Shakespeare.
There are some who aifect a belief that discussions such as
these detract somewhat from the honour of the poet, and that his
works are so universal in their application, any evidences which
LOCAL ILLUSTRATIONS.
483
refer even the basis of his creations to materiahties tend to
deteriorate their influence. This opinion is surely founded on a
misapprehension. The time may undoubtedly come — may,
indeed, have already arrived — when the dramas of Shakespeare
are fully appreciated in far distant lands by readers, to whom
not only many of the localities that are introduced into them,
but much even of the history, may be unknown, or regarded as
fanciful. The pleasure and instruction derived from them will
not thus be sensibly diminished. Yet it is surely something
gained towards our fragmentary and defective knowledge of the
poet himself, and of the materials he employed in the construc-
tion of his dramas, to be enabled to ascertain that he did not
scruple to avail himself of external and local circumstances in
the composition of one of his most pleasing comedies. The art
by which these are incorporated into the play, and the means by
which the latter was made to fulfil the condition of contemporary
satire without in the least impairing its universality, belong ex-
clusively to the dramatic works of Shakespeare; and, impartially
considered, the knowledge of these facts increases rather than
diminishes our appreciation of the author's genius.
ADDITIONAL NOTE.
No preface to the present volume having been considered necessary, I may
here take the opportunity of stating, in addition to previous acknowledgments,
tliat I am indebted for the knowledge of the curious passage respecting
Pros])cro in tlie Italian of Sansovino, to Mr. J. G. Waller. On a minute
examination, I find tliat my thanks for any other memoranda, however brief, have
been carefully acknowledged in the places where they are inserted, and I have only
to express my regret that such kind of assistance is at present so sparingly
contributed. It is also invariably stated, whenever the selection of Mr. Eairholt's
engravings is derived from the results of his own reading. In a work like the
present, mainly intended for the use of reference by students, it is impossible to
attain too great a precision in matters of this kind, even to the right attribution of
the earliest quoters of illustrative passages.
Since the greater portion of this volume was printed, I have procured a copy
of the early German drama of Jidlo und HijpoUta, alluded to at p. 4 of the
introduction to the Two Gentlemen of Verona. Tieck's opinion that there is any
very close connection between the two plays, appears to me to be somewhat a
hasty one ; although it must be admitted that there are one or two minor
circumstances that favour his supposition. The clown in the German play is, like
Speed, extremely eager after his perquisites ; and there is an incident of the tearing
of a letter, though not in a scene exactly analogous to that in Shakespeare. The
story of the play may be briefly stated as follows. Bomulus, a Eoman, betrothed
to Hypolita, leaves his beloved to the care of his brother Julius, whilst he travels
to Rome to obtain the consent of his parents. Julius, a treacherous betrayer of
his trust, intercepts the letters of Romulus, a-nd substitutes others in their place,
the latter being of a nature to infuriate Hypolita, and the Prince, her father. The
lady, distracted by the conduct of which she presumes Romulus to have been
guilty, eventually determines to accept her father's advice, and marry Julius ;
while Romulus, on his return, accidentally discovering the fragments of the
spurious letter that Hypolita, when she received, had torn in pieces, of course
ascertains the treachery by which his hopes had been defeated. Rut the discovery
w'as made too late, Julius and his fair bride being now returning from the Church
after their marriage, perfectly unconscious of the fate that awaited them; for
Romulus, in disguise, joins in the wedding dance, then stabs his brother, and
upbraids Hypolita with treachery. She in despair, kills herself, and Romulus
foUows her example ; the Prince retiring from the world, overwhelmed by so
unparalleled a calamity. It will readily be seen that there is, in this, little that
may not have been derived from sources that have no relation to Shakespeare's
comedy.
J. 0. H.
January, 1854.
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